In 1678, Galdan received from the Dalai Lama the title of Boshogtu Khan, thus confirming the Dzungars as the leading tribe within the Oirats. However, the Dzungar rulers bore the title of Khong Tayiji (deriving from the Chinese phrase Huang Taizi, which translates into English as "crown prince"), while the state itself was still referred to as the Dzungar Khanate.[4] Following the deaths of Galdan Boshogtu Khan in 1697 and his successor Tsewang Rabtan in 1727, the Khanate fell into a steep decline from which it would never recover, ultimately leading to its annexation and genocide by the Qing dynasty during the period of 1755–58.

A map of the Dzungar Khanate, by a Swedish officer in captivity there in 1716-1733, which include the region known today as Zhetysu

This map fragment shows territories of Oirats as in 1706. (Map Collection of the Library of Congress: "Carte de Tartarie" of Guillaume de L'Isle (1675-1726))

"Dzungar" is a compound of the Mongolian word jegün (züün), meaning "left" or "east" and γar meaning "hand" or "wing".[5] The region of Dzungaria derives its name from this confederation. Although the Dzungars were located west of the Eastern Mongols, the derivation of their name has been attributed to the fact that they represented the left wing of the Oirats. In the early 17th century, the head of the Oirat confederation was the leader of the Khoshut, Gushi Khan. When Gushi Khan decided to invade Tibet to replace the local Tsangpa Khan in favor of the Tibetan Geluk Sect, the Oirat army were organized into left and right wing. The right wing consisting of Khoshuts and Torguts remained in Tibet while the Choros and Khoid of the Left wing retreated north into the Tarim basin, since then the powerful empire of the Choros became known as the Left Wing, i.e. Zuungar.

The Dzungar Khanate is memorable because it was the last of the steppe nomadic empires and because of its influence on the westward expansion of the Chinese state. About 1620 the Oirats or western Mongols became united in Dzungaria. By about 1680 they had conquered the Tarim Basin to the south. In 1688 Galdan defeated the Khalkhas or eastern Mongols, many of whom fled southeast to Inner Mongolia where they became and remained Manchu subjects. In 1696, the Manchu defeated Galdan near Ulan Bator, chased him westward and gained control over Outer Mongolia. In 1717 Tsewang Rabtan sent an army to Tibet. The Manchu drove the Dzungars out and established a protectorate over Tibet. In 1750-57, the Manchu took advantage of a Dzungar civil war to conquer Dzungaria and killed a large part of the population. The Manchu turned south and annexed the Tarim Basin by 1759, thus completing the current western border of China.

The chiefs of the Dzungars were of the Choros lineage and reckoned their descent from the Oirat taishis Toghoon (d. 1438) and Esen (r. 1438-54). At the beginning of the 17th century, a young leader named Khara Khula emerged to unite the Oirats to fight Sholui Ubashi Khong Tayiji, the first Altan Khan of the Khalkha, who few years earlier expelled the Oirats from their home in the Kobdo region in present-day northwest Mongolia.[6] Early in his reign, Khara Kula united the Choros, Dorbod and Khoid tribes, thus forming the Dzungar nation. In the 1620s wars against the Khalkha, he could gain decisive victory over the Eastern Mongols. The Oirats homeland was under the dominion of Jasaghtu Khan of the Khalkha. In 1623 the Oirat confederation killed Ubashi Khong Tayiji, and secured their independence. At the time, only Torobaikhu, a leader of the Khoshud tribe could claim the title of Khan while Baatur Dalai Taishi of the Dorbods was considered the most powerful Oirat chief. Even so, Khara Khula's son Baatur Khung Taiji (d. 1653) joined the 1636–42 expedition to Tibet led by Güshi Khan Torobaikhu.[7] After Baatur returned to Dzungaria with the title Erdeni (given by the Dalai Lama) and much booty, he made three expeditions against the Kazakhs. With the migrations of the Torghuds, the Khoshuds and the Dorbods from 1630 to 1677, the Dzungars' relative power was increased in Zungaria.

The conflicts by the Dzungars are remembered in a Kazakh ballad Elim-ai.[8]

The Dzungars went to war against the Kyrgyz, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Kazakhs when the Dzungars invaded deep into Central Asia to Yasi (Turkestan) and Tashkent in 1643 under Ba'atur Khongtaiji.[9]

In 1653 Sengge succeeded his father Baatur Khung Taiji as Dzungarian chief, but an internal strife with his half brother Chechen Tayiji involved the Khoshuud.[10] From 1657 on, Amin-Dara's sons Sengge and Galdan faced disafection from their half-brothers. With the support of Ochirtu Khan of the Khoshuud, this strife ended with Sengge's victory in 1661. In 1667 he captured Erinchin Lobsang Tayiji, the third and last Altan Khan. However, he himself was assassinated by his half brothers Chechen Tayiji and Zotov in a coup in 1670.[11]

Sengge's younger brother Galdan immediately returned from Tibet to lay life and took revenge on Chechen. As a Buddhist priest, Galdan had been to Tibet at the age of thirteen and had trained under the fourth Panchen Lama and then the Fifth Dalai Lama. Allied with Ochirtu Sechen of the Khoshuud, Galdan defeated Chechen, and drove Zotov out of Zungaria. However, Sengge's two sons Sonom Rabdan and Tsewang Rabtan revolted against him, but they were also crushed in the end. In 1671 The Dalai Lama bestowed the title of Khan on Galdan. Although, already married Anu-Dara, granddaughter of Ochirtu, he came into conflict with his grandfather in law. Fearing of Galdan's popularity, Ochirtu supported his uncle and rival Choqur Ubashi who refused to recognize Galdan's title. The victory over Ochirtu in 1677 resulted in the establishment of hegemony over the Oirats. In the next year the Dalai Lama gave the highest title of Boshoghtu (or Boshughtu) Khan to him,[12] Galdan thus united the entire Oirats in Zungaria and Western Mongolia.

In 1680 the Black Khirgiz raided Moghulistan and occupied Yarkend. The inhabitants of Yarkend appealed to Galdan Khan for help. The Dzungars conquered Kashgar and Yarkend, and Galdan had its ruler chosen by its inhabitants.[14] Then he invaded the north of Tengeri Mountain in modern Kazakhstan the next year, but failed to take Sairam city. Eventually, he could conquer Turfan and Hami the next year.[15] In 1683 Galdan's armies under Rabtan reached Tashkent and the Syr Darya and crushed two armies of the Kazakhs. After that Galdan subjugated the Black Khirgiz and ravaged the Fergana valley.

From 1685 Galdan's forces aggressively pushed the Kazakhs. His general Rabtan took Taraz city, and his main force forced the Kazakhs to immigrate westwards.[16] In 1698 Galdan's successor Tsewang Rabtan reached Tengiz lake and Turkestan, and the Dzungars controlled Zhei-Su Tashkent until 1745.[17] The Dzungars' war on the Kazakhs pushed them into seeking aid from Russia.[18]

The Dzungar Khanate extracted yasaq (tribute) from their Baraba Muslim underlings. Converting to Orthodox Christianity and becoming Russian subjects was a tactic by the Baraba to find an excuse not to pay yasaq to the Dzungars.[19]

Some of the Yenisei Kirghiz were relocated into the Dzungar Khanate by the Dzungars, and then the Qing moved them from Dzungaria to northeastern China in 1761, where they became known as the Fuyu Kyrgyz.[23][24][25] Sibe Bannermen were stationed in Dzungaria while Northeastern China (Manchuria) was where some of the remaining Öelet Oirats were deported to.[26] The Nonni basin was where Oirat Öelet deportees were settled. The Yenisei Kirghiz were deported along with the Öelet.[27] Chinese and Oirat replaced Oirat and Kirghiz during Manchukuo as the dual languages of the Nonni-based Yenisei Kirghiz.[28]

At first the Khalkhas and Oirats were in league, bound by the provisions of the Mongol-Oirat code.[29] In order to cement this union, Galdan attempted to ally with Zasaghtu Khan Shira who lost part of his subjects to Tushiyetu Khan Chakhundorji, and moved his ordo near the Altai Range. Tushiyetu Khan attacked the right wing of the Khalkhas and killed Shira in 1687. Galdan dispatched troops under his younger brother Dorji-jav against the Tushiyetu Khan the next year, but they were eventually defeated and Dorji-jav was killed in the ensuing battle. Chakhundorji murdered Degdeehei Mergen Ahai of the Zasaghtu Khan who was on the way to Galdan. The Qing court intervened and called off the Mongolian aristocrats to assemble a conference.

To avenge the death of his brother and expand his influence over other Mongol areas, Galdan strategically prepared for a war with Khalkha. Galdan established a friendly relationship with the Russians who were at war with Tushiyetu Khan over territories near Lake Baikal in northern Khalkha. Bonded by a common interest in defeating Khalkha, both Galdan and the Russians simultaneously attacked Khalkha and conquered most of the territories of Khalkha. Armed with superior firearms bought from Russians, Galdan attacked the land of the late Zasaghtu Khan, and advanced to the dominion of Chakhundorji. The Russian Cossacks meanwhile attacked and defeated Khalkha's contingent of 10,000 near Lake Baikal. After two bloody battles with the Dzungars near Erdene Zuu Monastery and Tomor, Chakhundorji and his son Galdandorji fled to the Ongi River.

The Dzungars occupied the Khalkha homeland, and forced the Jebtsundamba KhutuktuZanabazar to flee. The Qing court strengthened its northern border garrisons, and advised the Khalkhas to resist Galdan. After being reinforced by fresh troops, the Tushiyetu Khan Chakhundorji counterattacked the Dzungars, and fought with them near Olgoi Lake on August3, 1688. The Oirats won after a 3-day battle. Galdan's conquest of Khalkha Mongolia made Zanabazar and Chakhundorji submit to the Qing dynasty in September of the same year.

By his victory in 1688, Galdan had driven the Khalkhas into the arms of the Qing and made himself a military threat to the Manchus. Unfortunately for Galdan, Kangxi was unusually vigorous and warlike. In 1690 the Manchus and Dzungars fought at Ulan Butung and Galdan withdrew to the north. (The battle was fought 350 kilometers directly north of Peking near the western headwaters of the Liao River at the southern end of the Greater Khingan Mountains). The problem with all of these nomad wars was that the Manchu could not maintain a permanent army on the steppe. If the Manchu sent an army the nomads would flee and come back when the Manchu ran out of supplies. In 1696 Galdan was on the upper Kerulen River east of Ulaanbaatar about 700 km northwest of Peking. Kangxi's plan was to personally lead an army northwest to Galdan while sending a second army north from the Ordos Region to block his escape. Kangxi reached the Kerulen, found Galdan gone and was forced to turn back due to lack of supplies. On the same day that Kangxi turned back (June 12) Galdan blundered into the western army and was disastrously defeated in the battle of Jao Modo near the upper Tuul River east of Ulan Bator at Zuunmod. Galdan's wife, Anu, was killed and the Manchus captured 20,000 cattle and 40,000 sheep. Galdan fled with his remaining 40 or 50 men. He gathered a few thousand followers who later deserted due to hunger. In 1697 he was in the Altai Mountains near Khovd with 300 men when he died suddenly under mysterious circumstances (April 4, 1697). He was succeeded by Tsewang Rabtan who had revolted against him.

The Dzungars led by Tsewang Rabtan's brother Tseren Dondup invaded Tibet - which was then dominated by the Khoshut Khanate founded by the Khoshuts, another Oirat tribe - in 1717, deposed Yeshe Gyatso, a pretender to the position of the Dalai Lama (who had been promoted by Lha-bzang Khan, the titular King of Tibet). The 5th Dalai Lama had encouraged Mongolian lamas to prevent any non-Ge-lugs-pa teaching among the Mongols. The Dzungars soon began to loot Lhasa, thus losing initial Tibetan goodwill towards them. The Qing Kangxi Emperor retaliated in 1718, but his military expedition was annihilated by the Dzungars in the Battle of the Salween River, not far from Lhasa.[30]

Many Nyingmapa and Bonpos were executed and Tibetans visiting Dzungar officials were forced to stick their tongues out so the Dzungars could tell if the person recited constant mantras (which was said to make the tongue black or brown). This allowed them to pick the Nyingmapa and Bonpos, who recited many magic-mantras.[31] This habit of sticking one's tongue out as a mark of respect on greeting someone has remained a Tibetan custom until recent times.

At the death of Galdan Tseren in 1745 the Dzungars appeared still strong. However, the sudden collapse of the Khanate stemmed from Galdan Tseren's sons.[33] In 1749 Galden Tseren's son Lamdarjaa seized the throne from his younger brother. He was overthrown by his cousin Dawaachi (zh) and the Khoid noble Amursana. But they began to fight each other for succession. In 1753 Dawaachi's three relatives ruling the Dorbed and Bayad surrendered to the Qing after their conflict with Dawaachi, and migrated to Khalkha. Amursana of Khoid followed them. In spring 1755, the Qing dynasty attacked Kulja leading to the capture of the Dzungar Khan, who was handed over by the Uqturpan CountyBegKhojis (霍集斯). Amarsana requested that he be made Dzungar Khan, but the Qianlong Emperor would only make him Khan of Khoit, one among four equal Khans.[34] In summer, Amursanaa along with Chingünjav led a revolt against the Qing. Over the next two years, the Manchu and Mongol armies of the Qing Dynasty destroyed the remnants of the Dzungar khanate. Their last leader, Prince Amursanaa revolted against the Qing, and fled north to seek refuge with the Russians. Amursana died there of smallpox. In the spring of 1762 his frozen body was brought to Kyakhta for the Manchu to see. The Russians then buried it, refusing the Manchu request that it be handed over for posthumous punishment.[35] To commemorate his military victory, Qianlong established the Puning Temple Complex of Chengde in 1755.

The Qianlong Emperor then ordered genocide against the Dzungars and moved the remaining Dzungar people to the mainland while at the same time ordering his generals to kill all the men in Barkol or Suzhou. Qianlong divided their wives and children amongst the Qing forces, which consisted of ManchuBannermen.[36][37] Qing scholar Wei Yuan estimated the total population of Dzungars before the fall at 600,000 people, or 200,000 households. Oirat officer Saaral betrayed and battled against the Oirats. In a widely cited[38][39][40] account of the war, Wei Yuan wrote that about 40% of the Dzungar households were killed by smallpox, 20% fled to Russia or Kazakh tribes, and 30% were killed by the Qing army of the Manchu Bannermen, leaving no yurts in an area of several thousands li except of those who had surrendered.[41] During this war Kazakhs attacked dispersed Oirats and Altays. Based on this account, Wen-Djang Chu wrote that 80% of the 600,000 or more Dzungars (especially Choros, Olot, Khoid, Baatud and Zakhchin) were destroyed by disease and attack[42] which Michael Clarke described as "the complete destruction of not only the Dzungar state but of the Dzungars as a people."[43] Historian Peter Perdue attributed the decimation of the Dzungars to an explicit policy of extermination launched by Qianlong, but he also observed signs of a more lenient policy after mid-1757.[39] Mark Levene, a historian whose recent research interests focus on genocide, has stated that the extermination of the Dzungars was "arguably the eighteenth century genocide par excellence."[44] It was not until generations later that Dzungaria rebounded from the destruction and near liquidation of the Dzungars after the mass slayings of Dzungars.[45]

Anti-Dzungar Uyghur rebels from the Turfan and Hami oases had submitted to Qing rule as vassals and requested Qing help for overthrowing Dzungar rule. Uyghur leaders like Emin Khoja were granted titles within the Qing nobility, and these Uyghurs helped supply the Qing military forces during the anti-Dzungar campaign.[46][47][48] The Qing employed Khoja Emin in its campaign against the Dzungars and used him as an intermediary with Muslims from the Tarim Basin to inform them that the Qing were only aiming to kill Oirats and that they would leave the Muslims alone, and also to convince them to kill the Oirats themselves and side with the Qing since the Qing noted the Muslims' resentment of their former experience under Dzungar rule at the hands of Tsewang Rabtan.[49]

There were 600,000 Khalkha Mongols and 1,000,000 Oirats in 1755. According to 2010 estimate 2,500,000 Khalkhas and 520,000 Oirats living in 4 countries. There a few hundreds of Choros people in Mongolia.

The Qing "final solution" of genocide to solve the problem of the Dzungars, made the Manchu Qing sponsored settlement of millions of Han Chinese, Hui, Turkestani Oasis people (Uyghurs) and Manchu Bannermen in Dzungaria possible, since the land was now devoid of Dzungars.[50] Professor Stanley W. Toops noted that today's demographic situation is similar to that of the early Qing period in Xinjiang. In northern Xinjiang, the Qing brought in Han, Hui, Uyghur, Xibe, and Kazakh colonists after they exterminated the Oirats in the region, with one third of Xinjiang's total population consisting of Hui and Han in the northern are, while around two thirds were Uyghurs in southern Xinjiang's Tarim Basin.[51][52] In Dzungaria, the Qing established new cities like Ürümqi and Yining.[53] The Qing were the ones who unified Xinjiang and changed its demographic situation.[54] The Dzungarian basin, which used to be inhabited by Dzungars, is currently inhabited by Kazakhs.[55] The Dzungar genocide has been compared to the Qing extermination of the Jinchuan Tibetan people in 1776.[56]

The depopulation of northern Xinjiang after the Buddhist Oirats were slaughtered, led to the Qing settling Manchu, Sibo (Xibe), Daurs, Solons, Han Chinese, Hui Muslims, and Turkic Muslim Taranchis in the north, with Han Chinese and Hui migrants making up the greatest number of settlers. Since it was the crushing of the Buddhist Oirats by the Qing which led to promotion of Islam and the empowerment of the Muslim Begs in southern Xinjiang, and migration of Muslim Taranchis to northern Xinjiang, it was proposed by Henry Schwarz that "the Qing victory was, in a certain sense, a victory for Islam".[57] Xinjiang was a unified defined geographic identity was created and developed by the Qing. It was the Qing who led to Turkic Muslim power in the region increasing since the Mongol power was crushed by the Qing while Turkic Muslim culture and identity was tolerated or even promoted by the Qing.[58]

After the Qing were done conquering Dzungaria in 1759, they proclaimed that the new land which formerly belonged to the Dzungars, was now absorbed into "China" (Dulimbai Gurun) in a Manchu language memorial.[59][60][61] The Qing expounded on their ideology that they were bringing together the "outer" non-Han Chinese like the Inner Mongols, Eastern Mongols, Oirat Mongols, and Tibetans together with the "inner" Han Chinese, into "one family" united in the Qing state, showing that the diverse subjects of the Qing were all part of one family, the Qing used the phrase "Zhong Wai Yi Jia" (中外一家) or "Nei Wai Yi Jia" (內外一家, "interior and exterior as one family"), to convey this idea of "unification" of the different peoples.[62]

1.
Nomadic empire
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They are the most prominent example of non-sedentary polities. Some nomadic empires operated by establishing a city inside a conquered sedentary state. As the pattern is repeated, the originally nomadic dynasty becomes culturally assimilated to the culture of the nation before it is ultimately overthrown. Ibn Khaldun described a cycle on a smaller scale in his Asabiyyah theory. A term used for these polities in the medieval period is khanate. Linguistically they are regarded as Iranian, or possibly Thracian with an Iranian ruling class. The Pontic-Caspian steppe, southern Russia and Ukraine until 7th century BCE, the northern Caucasus area, including Georgia and modern day Azerbaijan Central, East and North Anatolia 714–626 BCE. The Ancient Greeks gave the name Scythia to all the lands north-east of Europe, the Scythians – the Greeks name for this initially nomadic people – inhabited Scythia from at least the 11th century BC to the 2nd century AD. The Sarmatians were a confederation of Iranian people during classical antiquity. They spoke Scythian, an Indo-European language from the Eastern Iranian family, the Xiongnu were a confederation of nomadic tribes from Central Asia with a ruling class of unknown origin and other subjugated tribes. The Xiongnu was the first unified empire of nomadic peoples, relations between early Chinese dynasties and the Xiongnu were complicated and included military conflict, exchanges of tribute and trade, and marriage treaties. They were considered so dangerous and disruptive that the Qin Dynasty ordered the construction of the Great Wall to protect China from Xiongnu attacks, the Kushan Empire was a syncretic empire, formed by Yuezhi, in the Bactrian territories in the early 1st century. Like most ancient peoples known through Chinese historiography, the makeup of the Xianbei is unclear. The Xianbei were a branch of the earlier Donghu and it is likely at least some were proto-Mongols. The Huns were a confederation of Eurasian tribes from the Steppes of Central Asia and their appearance in Europe brought with it great ethnic and political upheaval and may have stimulated the Great Migration. The empire reached its largest size under Attila between 447 and 453, the Rouran, Juan Juan, or Ruru were a confederation of Mongolic speaking nomadic tribes on the northern borders of China from the late 4th century until the late 6th century. They controlled the area of Mongolia from the Manchurian border to Turpan and, perhaps, the east coast of Lake Balkhash, the Göktürks or Kök-Türks were a Turkic people of ancient North and Central Asia and northwestern China. Under the leadership of Bumin Khan and his sons established the first known Turkic state around 546

2.
Yining
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Yining, also known as Ghulja, and formerly Ili and Kulja, is a county-level city in northwestern Xinjiang, Peoples Republic of China, and the seat of the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture. Historically, Yining is the successor to the city of Almaliq in neighbouring Huocheng County. The city of Yining is an administrative unit located along Ili River. As of 2015, it has an population of 542,507. It is the most populous city in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, from 13-15th century it was under the control of Chagatai Khanate known as Mughulistan empire with its capital Almaligh, Turpan, Tashkent, Yarkent and Kashgar. Another Mongul empire—the Zunghar Khanate—established around Ili area, suidun, or more specifically New Kulja, Manchu Kulja, or Ili, the Chinese fortress and the regional capital. Yining was the site of the Sino-Russian Treaty of Kulja 1851, in 1864-66, the city suffered severely from fighting during the Dungan Revolt. The city and the rest of the Ili River basin were seized by the Russians in 1871 during Yakub Begs independent rule of Kashgaria and it was restored to the Chinese under the terms of the Treaty of Saint Petersburg. Had the Taranjis and Kalmuks been left to themselves, or had they remained in a preponderating majority, finally among the tradesmen we may mention millers, vinegar manufacturers and potters. The number of factories amount to-day at Kulja to 38, wherein over 131 hands are occupied. To this of course other tradespeople have to be added, such as 169 boot-makers,50 blacksmiths,48 carpenters,11 brass-founders,3 silversmiths,26 stone-cutters, and 2 tailors. During the Ili Rebellion, the Chinese Muslim officer Liu Bin Di engaged in combat against Soviet backed Turkic Muslim rebels, Yining became the capital of an autonomous district in 1954. In 1962, major Sino-Soviet clashes took place along the Ili River, Yining is located on the northern side of the Ili River in the Dzungarian basin, about 70 km east of the border with Kazakhstan, and about 710 km west of Ürümqi. The Ili River valley is far wetter than most of Xinjiang and has rich grazing land, the City of Yining borders on Huocheng County in the west and the Yining County in the east, across the river in the south is Qapqal Xibe Autonomous County. Yining has a climate, without the strong variation in seasonal precipitation seen across most of China. Dry and sunny weather dominates year-round, winters are cold, with a January average of −8.8 °C. Yet the influence of the Dzungarian Altau to the northwest and Boroboro Mountains to the northeast helps keep the city warmer than more easterly locales on a similar latitude, summers are hot, with a July average of 23.1 °C. Diurnal temperature ranges tend to be large from April to October, the annual mean temperature is 8.98 °C

3.
Oirat language
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Oirat belongs to the group of Mongolic languages. Scholars differ as to whether they regard Oirat as a language or a major dialect of the Mongolian language. Oirat speaking areas are scattered across the far west of the Mongolian state, the northwest of Peoples Republic of China, and Russias Caspian coast, where its major variety is Kalmyk. In all three nations, Oirat has become endangered or even obsolescent as a direct result of government actions or as a consequence of social. Its most widespread dialect, which is spoken in all of these nations, is Torgut. The term Oirat or, more precisely, Written Oirat is sometimes used to refer to the language of historical documents written in the Clear script. There are some varieties that are difficult to classify, the Alasha dialect in Alxa League in Inner Mongolia originally belonged to Oirat and has been classified as such by some because of its phonology. But it has classified by others as Mongolian proper because of its morphology. The Darkhad dialect in Mongolias Khövsgöl Province has variously been classified as Oirat, Mongolian proper, Oirat is endangered in all areas where it is spoken. As for Mongolia, the predominance of Khalkha Mongolian is bringing about the Khalkhaization of all varieties of Mongolian. Oirat has been written in two systems, historically, the Clear script, which originated from the Mongolian script, was used. It uses modified letters shapes e. g. to differentiate between different rounded vowels, and it uses a small stroke on the right to indicate vowel length and it was retained longest in China where it can still be found in an occasional journal article. In Kalmykia, a Cyrillic-based script system has been implemented and it is strictly phonemic, not representing epenthetic vowels, and thus doesn’t show syllabification. In Mongolia, Central Mongolian minority varieties have no status, thus Oirats are supposed to use Mongolian Cyrillic which de facto only represents Khalkha Mongolian. In China, Buryat and Oirat are considered non-standard as compared to Southern Mongolian and are supposed to use the Mongolian script. Bitkeeva, Aisa, Kalmyckij yazyk v sovremennom mire, bitkeeva, Aisa, Ethnic Language Identity and the Present Day Oirad-Kalmyks. Chuluunbaatar, Otgonbayar, Einführung in die mongolischen Schriften, BNMAU dah’ mongol helnii nutgiin ajalguuny tol’ bichig, oird ayalguu. Indjieva, Elena, Oirat Tobi, Intonational structure of the Oirat language, tounai K. Oyungerel G. Chae G. T

4.
Tibetan Buddhism
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Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet, the regions surrounding the Himalayas and much of Central Asia. It derives from the latest stages of Indian Buddhism and preserves the Tantric status quo of eighth-century India, Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow body. Religious texts and commentaries comprise the Tibetan Buddhist canon, such that Tibetan is a language of these areas. Among its prominent exponents is the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, the number of its adherents is estimated to be between ten and twenty million. Westerners unfamiliar with Tibetan Buddhism initially turned to China for an understanding, there the term used was lamaism to distinguish it from a then traditional Chinese form. The term was taken up by scholars including Hegel, as early as 1822. Insofar as it implies a discontinuity between Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, the term has been discredited, another term, Vajrayāna is occasionally used mistakenly for Tibetan Buddhism. More accurately, it signifies a certain subset of practices included in, not only Tibetan Buddhism, the native Tibetan term for all Buddhism is doctrine of the internalists. There is an association between the religious and the secular the spiritual and the temporal in Tibet. The term for this relationship is chos srid zung brel, in the west the term Indo-Tibetan Buddhism has become current, in acknowledgement of its derivation from the latest stages of Buddhist development in northern India. Tibetan Buddhism comprises the teachings of the three vehicles of Buddhism, the Foundational Vehicle, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna, the Mahāyāna goal of spiritual development is to achieve the enlightenment of buddhahood in order to most efficiently help all other sentient beings attain this state. The motivation in it is the mind of enlightenment — an altruistic intention to become enlightened for the sake of all sentient beings. Bodhisattvas are revered beings who have conceived the will and vow to dedicate their lives with bodhicitta for the sake of all beings, Tibetan Buddhism teaches methods for achieving buddhahood more quickly by including the Vajrayāna path in Mahāyāna. Buddhahood is defined as a free of the obstructions to liberation as well as those to omniscience. When one is freed from all mental obscurations, one is said to attain a state of continuous bliss mixed with a simultaneous cognition of emptiness, in this state, all limitations on ones ability to help other living beings are removed. It is said there are countless beings who have attained buddhahood. Buddhas spontaneously, naturally and continuously perform activities to all sentient beings. However it is believed that ones karma could limit the ability of the Buddhas to help them, there is a long history of oral transmission of teachings in Tibetan Buddhism

5.
Khan (title)
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Khan is originally a title for a sovereign or a military ruler, widely used by Turkic and later medieval nomadic Mongolian tribes living to the north of China. Khan also occurs as a title in the Xianbei confederation for their chief between 283 and 289, the Rourans were the first people who used the titles khagan and khan for their emperors. Subsequently the Ashina adopted the title and brought it to the rest of Asia, in the middle of the sixth century the Iranians knew of a Kagan – King of the Turks. Khan now has many equivalent meanings such as commander, leader, as of 2015 khans exist in South Asia, Middle East, Central Asia, Eastern Europe and Turkey. The female alternatives are Khatun, Khatoon and Khanum and these titles or names are sometimes written as Han, Kan, Hakan, Hanum, or Hatun and as xan, xanım. Khagan is rendered as Khan of Khans and it was the title of Chinese Emperor Emperor Taizong of Tang, and also the title of Genghis Khan and of the persons selected to rule the Mongol Empire. For instance Möngke Khan and Ogedei Khan would be Khagans but not Chagatai Khan, some managed to establish principalities of some importance for a while, as their military might repeatedly proved a serious threat to such empires as China and kingdoms in Central Asia. One of the earliest notable examples of such principalities in Europe was Danube Bulgaria, Khan was the official title of the ruler until 864 AD, when Kniaz Boris adopted the Eastern Orthodox faith. The title Khan became unprecedently prominent when the Mongol Temüjin created the Mongol empire, the greatest land empire the world has ever seen and his title was khagan, or Khan of Khans, but has often been abbreviated to Khan or described as Great Khan. The great leader was regarded as a khan in the middle east, ming Dynasty Chinese Emperors also used the term Xan to denote brave warriors and rulers. The title Khan was used to designate the greatest rulers of the Jurchens, while most Afghan principalities were styled emirate, there was a khanate of ethnic Uzbeks in Badakhshan since 1697. For example, in present Armenia and nearby territories to the left and right, diverse khanates existed in Dagestan, Azerbaijan, including Baku, Ganja, Jawad, Quba, Salyan, Shakki and Shirvan=Shamakha, Talysh, Nakhichevan and Karabakh. The most important of these states were, Khanate of Kazan, sibir Khanate Astrakhan Khanate Crimean Khanate. The ruling descendants of the branch of Genghis Khans dynasty are referred to as the Great Khans. The title Khan of Khans was among numerous titles used by the Sultans of the Ottoman empire as well as the rulers of the Golden Horde and its descendant states. The title Khan was also used in the Seljuk Turk dynasties of the near-east to designate a head of multiple tribes, clans or nations, jurchen and Manchu rulers also used the title Khan, for example, Nurhaci was called Genggiyen Han. Rulers of the Göktürks, Avars and Khazars used the higher title Kaghan, see the main article for more details. Khan-i-Khanan was a given to the commander-in-chief of the army of the Mughals

6.
Four Oirat
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The Oirats were one of the forest peoples who lived in west of the Mongols of Genghis Khan. They submitted to Genghis in 1207 and played prominent roles in the history of the Mongol Empire, after the overthrow of the Yuan dynasty, Möngke-Temür, a high official of the Yuan, had placed himself at the head of the Oirats. When he died, three chieftains, Mahamu, Taiping and Batu-bolad, ruled them and they sent envoys with gifts to the Ming dynasty. In 1409, the Yongle Emperor bestowed upon them the title of wang in return, the Oirats began to challenge the Borjigin Emperors in the reign of Elbeg Khan. It is curious to find one of the 3 chief was with Muslim name, before 1640, the Oirats had been wavering between the two faiths, Islam and Buddhism. Both these creeds had supporters among the pagan Oirats, the Chinese Yongle Emperor demanded Öljei Temür Khan Bunyashiri to accept his supremacy in 1409 but Öljei Temür refused and defeated a Ming force the next year. In 1412 a large force under Yongle forced Öljei Temür Khan to flee westward, the Oirats led by Mahamu of Choros killed Öljei Temür who suffered great loss. The Western Mongols had Delbeg Khan, a descendant of Ariq Böke, whose family had been relegated to Mongolia during the Yuan, however, the Eastern Mongols under Arugtai of the Asud refused to accept the new khan and they were in constant war with each other. The Ming dynasty intervened aggressively against any overpowerful Mongol leader, exacerbating the Mongol-Oirat conflict, in 1408 Mahamu was succeeded by his son Toghan, who continued his strife with Arugtai chingsang. By 1437, Toghan had totally defeated Arugtai and an Ögedeid Emperor Adai Khan, Toghan made Genghisid princes his puppet khans of the Mongolia-based Northern Yuan dynasty. When he died in 1438, his son Esen became a taishi, the Oirats had close relations with Moghulistan and Hami where the Chagatayid Khans reigned. From the Ming chronicles, it is known that the Oirats conducted regular raids on those areas, Esen crushed the Moghulistan and Hami monarchs and forced them to accept him as their overlord. He also conquered Outer and Inner Mongolia and subjugated the Jurchens in Manchuria, the Mings Zhengtong Emperor was captured by Esen in 1449. During his reign, the Oirat headquarters was centered on north-west Mongolia and Barkol, Esen relied on Muslim merchants from Samarkand, Hami and Turpan and his own royal house, Choros was related to Moghulistan according to a myth. After murdering Khagan Agbarjin, Esen took the title khan for himself, but soon after he was overthrown by the Oirat noblemen and killed by a son of a man whom he executed. Esens death broke up the unity of the Oirats and they now warred with each other for leadership. Esens son Amasanj moved west, pillaging the lands of Hami, Moghulistan, from 1480 on, the Eastern Mongols under Mandukhai Khatun and Dayan Khan pushed the Oirats westward. By 1510 Dayan Khan had unified the entire Mongol nation including Oirats, however, the Khalkhas and some princes of southwest Inner Mongolia repeatedly launched massive attacks on the Oirats and looted their properties in the Irtysh, Barkol and Altai from 1552-1628

7.
Chagatai Khanate
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The Chagatai Khanate was a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate that comprised the lands ruled by Chagatai Khan, second son of Genghis Khan, and his descendants and successors. Initially it was a part of the Mongol Empire, but it became a functionally separate khanate with the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire after 1259. The Chagatai Khanate recognized the supremacy of the Yuan dynasty in 1304. At its height in the late 13th century, the Khanate extended from the Amu Darya south of the Aral Sea to the Altai Mountains in the border of modern-day Mongolia and China. The khanate lasted in one form or another from 1220s until the late 17th century, the eastern half remained under Chagatai khans, who were, at times, allied or at war with Timurs successors, the Timurid dynasty. Genghis Khans empire was inherited by his son, Ögedei Khan. Tolui, the youngest, the keeper of the hearth, was accorded the northern Mongolian homeland, Chagatai Khan, the second son, received Transoxiana, between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers and the area around Kashgar. He made his capital at Almaliq near what is now Yining City in northwestern China, the transition had to be ratified in a kurultai, which was duly celebrated, but without the presence of Batu Khan, the independent-minded khan of the Golden Horde. The Ögedite ulus was dismembered, only the Ögedites who did not immediately go into opposition were given minor fiefs, Chagatai died in 1242, shortly after his brother Ögedei. For nearly twenty years after this the Chagatai Khanate was little more than a dependency of the Mongol central government, the cities of Transoxiana, while located within the boundaries of the khanate, were administrated by officials who answered directly to the Great Khan. Most of the Chagatayids first supported Kublai but in 1269 they joined forces with the House of Ögedei, baraq was soon confined to Transoxiana and forced to become a vassal of Kaidu. At the same time, he was at odds with Abaqa Khan, the Ilkhan, baraq attacked first, but was defeated by the Ilkhanate army and forced to return to Transoxiana, where he died not long after. The next several Chagatayid khans were appointed by Kaidu, who maintained a hold upon the khanate until his death and he finally found a suitable khan in Baraqs son Duwa, who participated in Kaidus wars with Kublai khan and his successors of the Yuan dynasty. The two rulers also were active against the Ilkhanate, after Kaidus death in 1301, Duwa threw off his allegiance to his successor. He also made peace with the Yuan dynasty and paid tributes to the Yuan court, Duwa left behind numerous sons, many of whom became khans themselves. Included among these are Kebek, who instituted a standardization of the coinage and selected a sedentary capital, and Tarmashirin, Tarmashirin, however, was brought down by a rebellion of the tribes in the eastern provinces, and the khanate became increasingly unstable in the following years. In 1346 a tribal chief, Amir Qazaghan, killed the Chagatai khan Qazan Khan ibn Yasaur during a revolt, the Chagatai Khanate split into two parts in the 1340s. In Transoxiana in the west, the mostly Muslim tribes, led by the Qaraunas amirs, seized control

8.
Qing dynasty
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It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the base for the modern Chinese state. The dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, in the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, originally a Ming vassal, began organizing Banners, military-social units that included Jurchen, Han Chinese, and Mongol elements. Nurhaci formed the Jurchen clans into an entity, which he renamed as the Manchus. By 1636, his son Hong Taiji began driving Ming forces out of Liaodong and declared a new dynasty, in 1644, peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing. The Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong Emperor from the 1750s to the 1790s extended Qing control into Central Asia, the early rulers maintained their Manchu ways, and while their title was Emperor, they used khan to the Mongols and they were patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. They governed using Confucian styles and institutions of government and retained the imperial examinations to recruit Han Chinese to work under or in parallel with Manchus. They also adapted the ideals of the system in dealing with neighboring territories. The Qianlong reign saw the apogee and initial decline in prosperity. The population rose to some 400 million, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate, corruption set in, rebels tested government legitimacy, and ruling elites did not change their mindsets in the face of changes in the world system. Following the Opium War, European powers imposed unequal treaties, free trade, the Taiping Rebellion and the Dungan Revolt in Central Asia led to the deaths of some 20 million people, most of them due to famines caused by war. In spite of disasters, in the Tongzhi Restoration of the 1860s, Han Chinese elites rallied to the defense of the Confucian order. The initial gains in the Self-Strengthening Movement were destroyed in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895, in which the Qing lost its influence over Korea, New Armies were organized, but the ambitious Hundred Days Reform of 1898 was turned back by Empress Dowager Cixi, a conservative leader. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries competed with reformist monarchists such as Kang Youwei, after the deaths of Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in 1908, the hardline Manchu court alienated reformers and local elites alike. The Wuchang Uprising on October 11,1911, led to the Xinhai Revolution, General Yuan Shikai negotiated the abdication of Puyi, the last emperor, on February 12,1912. Nurhaci declared himself the Bright Khan of the Later Jin state in both of the 12–13th century Jurchen Jin dynasty and of his Aisin Gioro clan. His son Hong Taiji renamed the dynasty Great Qing in 1636, there are competing explanations on the meaning of Qīng. The character Qīng is composed of water and azure, both associated with the water element and this association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water

9.
Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation

10.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing

11.
Mongolia
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Mongolia /mɒŋˈɡoʊliə/ is a landlocked unitary sovereign state in East Asia. Its area is equivalent with the historical territory of Outer Mongolia. It is sandwiched between China to the south and Russia to the north, while it does not share a border with Kazakhstan, Mongolia is separated from it by only 36.76 kilometers. At 1,564,116 square kilometers, Mongolia is the 18th largest and it is also the worlds second-largest landlocked country behind Kazakhstan and the largest landlocked country that does not border a closed sea. The country contains very little land, as much of its area is covered by grassy steppe, with mountains to the north and west. Ulaanbaatar, the capital and largest city, is home to about 45% of the countrys population, approximately 30% of the population is nomadic or semi-nomadic, horse culture is still integral. The majority of its population are Buddhists, the non-religious population is the second largest group. Islam is the dominant religion among ethnic Kazakhs, the majority of the states citizens are of Mongol ethnicity, although Kazakhs, Tuvans, and other minorities also live in the country, especially in the west. Mongolia joined the World Trade Organization in 1997 and seeks to expand its participation in regional economic, the area of what is now Mongolia has been ruled by various nomadic empires, including the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Rouran, the Turkic Khaganate, and others. In 1206, Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history. His grandson Kublai Khan conquered China to establish the Yuan dynasty, after the collapse of the Yuan, the Mongols retreated to Mongolia and resumed their earlier pattern of factional conflict, except during the era of Dayan Khan and Tumen Zasagt Khan. In the 16th century, Tibetan Buddhism began to spread in Mongolia, being led by the Manchu-founded Qing dynasty. By the early 1900s, almost one-third of the male population were Buddhist monks. After the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911, Mongolia declared independence from the Qing dynasty, shortly thereafter, the country came under the control of the Soviet Union, which had aided its independence from China. In 1924, the Mongolian Peoples Republic was declared as a Soviet satellite state, after the anti-Communist revolutions of 1989, Mongolia conducted its own peaceful democratic revolution in early 1990. This led to a multi-party system, a new constitution of 1992, homo erectus inhabited Mongolia from 850,000 years ago. Modern humans reached Mongolia approximately 40,000 years ago during the Upper Paleolithic, the Khoit Tsenkher Cave in Khovd Province shows lively pink, brown, and red ochre paintings of mammoths, lynx, bactrian camels, and ostriches, earning it the nickname the Lascaux of Mongolia. The venus figurines of Malta testify to the level of Upper Paleolithic art in northern Mongolia, the wheeled vehicles found in the burials of the Afanasevans have been dated to before 2200 BC

12.
Kazakhstan
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Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in northern Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Kazakhstan is the worlds largest landlocked country, and the ninth largest in the world, Kazakhstan is the dominant nation of Central Asia economically, generating 60% of the regions GDP, primarily through its oil/gas industry. It also has vast mineral resources, Kazakhstan is officially a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. Kazakhstan shares borders with Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, the terrain of Kazakhstan includes flatlands, steppe, taiga, rock canyons, hills, deltas, snow-capped mountains, and deserts. Kazakhstan has an estimated 18 million people as of 2014, Given its large area, its population density is among the lowest. The capital is Astana, where it was moved in 1997 from Almaty, the territory of Kazakhstan has historically been inhabited by nomadic tribes. This changed in the 13th century, when Genghis Khan occupied the country as part of the Mongolian Empire, following internal struggles among the conquerors, power eventually reverted to the nomads. By the 16th century, the Kazakh emerged as a distinct group, the Russians began advancing into the Kazakh steppe in the 18th century, and by the mid-19th century, they nominally ruled all of Kazakhstan as part of the Russian Empire. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, and subsequent civil war, the territory of Kazakhstan was reorganised several times, in 1936, it was made the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, part of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan was the last of the Soviet republics to declare independence during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan has worked to develop its economy, especially its dominant hydrocarbon industry. Kazakhstans 131 ethnicities include Kazakhs, Russians, Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Germans, Tatars, the Kazakh language is the state language, and Russian has equal official status for all levels of administrative and institutional purposes. The name Kazakh comes from the ancient Turkic word qaz, to wander, the name Cossack is of the same origin. The Persian suffix -stan means land or place of, so Kazakhstan can be translated as land of the wanderers. Kazakhstan has been inhabited since the Neolithic Age, the regions climate, archaeologists believe that humans first domesticated the horse in the regions vast steppes. Central Asia was originally inhabited by the Scythians, the Cuman entered the steppes of modern-day Kazakhstan around the early 11th century, where they later joined with the Kipchak and established the vast Cuman-Kipchak confederation. Under the Mongol Empire, the largest in history, administrative districts were established. These eventually came under the rule of the emergent Kazakh Khanate, throughout this period, traditional nomadic life and a livestock-based economy continued to dominate the steppe. Nevertheless, the region was the focus of ever-increasing disputes between the native Kazakh emirs and the neighbouring Persian-speaking peoples to the south, at its height the Khanate would rule parts of Central Asia and control Cumania

13.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians

14.
Kyrgyzstan
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Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic, is a country in Central Asia. Landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west and southwest, Tajikistan to the southwest and its capital and largest city is Bishkek. Kyrgyzstans recorded history spans over 2,000 years, encompassing a variety of cultures and empires, ethnic Kyrgyz make up the majority of the countrys 5.7 million people, followed by significant minorities of Uzbeks and Russians. Kyrgyz is closely related to other Turkic languages, although Russian remains widely spoken and is the official language, the majority of the population are non-denominational Muslims. In addition to its Turkic origins, Kyrgyz culture bears elements of Persian, Mongolian and Russian influence. Kyrgyz is believed to have derived from the Turkic word for forty, in reference to the forty clans of Manas. Literally, Kyrgyz means We are forty, at the time, in the early 9th century AD, the Uyghurs dominated much of Central Asia, Mongolia, and parts of Russia and China. King, Scythians were early settlers in present-day Kyrgyzstan, the Kyrgyz state reached its greatest expansion after defeating the Uyghur Khaganate in 840 A. D. From the 10th century the Kyrgyz migrated as far as the Tian Shan range, in the twelfth century the Kyrgyz dominion had shrunk to the Altay Range and Sayan Mountains as a result of the Mongol expansion. With the rise of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century, the Kyrgyz peacefully became a part of the Mongol Empire in 1207. The descent of the Kyrgyz from the autochthonous Siberian population is confirmed on the hand by the recent genetic studies. Issyk Kul Lake was a stopover on the Silk Road, a route for traders, merchants. Kyrgyz tribes were overrun in the 17th century by the Mongols, in the century by the Manchurian Qing Dynasty. In the late century, the majority part of what is today Kyrgyzstan was ceded to Russia through two treaties between China and Russia. The territory, then known in Russian as Kirghizia, was incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1876. The Russian takeover was met with numerous revolts against Tsarist authority, in addition, the suppression of the 1916 rebellion against Russian rule in Central Asia caused many Kyrgyz later to migrate to China. Soviet power was established in the region in 1919. On 5 December 1936, the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic was established as a republic of the Soviet Union

15.
Oirats
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Oirats are the westernmost group of the Mongols whose ancestral home is in the Altai region of western Mongolia. Although the Oirats originated in the parts of Central Asia, the most prominent group today is located in Kalmykia, a federal subject of Russia. Historically, the Oirats were composed of four tribes, Dzungar, Torghut, Dörbet. The minor tribes include, Khoid, Bayads, Myangad, Zakhchin, the name probably means oi and ard, and they were counted among the forest people in the 13th century. A second opinion believes the name derives from Mongolian word oirt meaning close, the name Oirat may derive from a corruption of the groups original name Dörben Öörd, meaning The Allied Four. In the 17th century, Zaya Pandita, a Gelug monk of the Khoshut tribe, the Todo Bichig writing system remained in use in Kalmykia until the mid-1920s when it was replaced by a Latin-based script, and later the Cyrillic alphabet. It can be seen in public signs in the Kalmyk capital, Elista. In Mongolia it was replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet in 1941. Some Oirats in China still use Todo Bichig as their writing system. A monument of Zaya Pandita was unveiled on the 400th anniversary of Zaya Panditas birth, comprising the Khoshut, Choros or Ölöt, Torghut, and Dörbet ethnic groups, they were dubbed Kalmyk or Kalmak, which means remnant or to remain, by their western Turkic neighbours. Various sources also list the Bargut, Buzava, Keraites, and Naiman tribes as comprising part of the Dörben Öörd, some tribes may have joined the original four only in later years. This name may reflect the Kalmyks remaining Buddhist rather than converting to Islam. One of the earliest mentions of the Oirat people in a text can be found in The Secret History of the Mongols. In the Secret History, the Oirats are counted among the forest people and are said to live under the rule of a known as bäki. They lived in Tuva and Mongolian Khövsgöl Province and the Oirats moved to the south in the 14th century, in one famous passage the Oirat chief, Quduqa Bäki, uses a yada or thunder stone to unleash a powerful storm on Genghis army. The magical ploy backfires however, when a wind blows the storm back at Quduqa. During early stages of Temujin Genghiss rise, Oirats under Quduqa bekhi fought against Genghis and were defeated, Oirats were fully submitted to Mongol rule after their ally Jamukha, Temujins childhood friend and later rival, was destroyed. Subject to the khan Oirats would form themselves as a loyal, in 1207, Jochi the eldest son of Genghis, subjugated the forest tribes including the Oirats and the Kyrgyzs

16.
Eurasian Steppe
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The Eurasian Steppe, also called the Great Steppe or the steppes, is the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia in the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome. It stretches from Romania, Moldova through Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Xinjiang and Mongolia to Manchuria, with one major exclave located mostly in Hungary, the Eurasian Steppe extends thousands of miles from near the mouth of the Danube River almost to the Pacific Ocean. It is bounded on the north by the forests of Russia and Siberia, there is no clear southern boundary although the land becomes increasingly dry as one moves south. The steppe narrows at two points, dividing it into three major parts, the Western Steppe begins near the mouth of the Danube and extends northeast almost to Kazan and then southeast to the southern tip of the Ural Mountains. Its northern edge was a band of forest-steppe which has now been obliterated by the conversion of the whole area to agricultural land. In the southeast the Black Sea-Caspian Steppe extends between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea to the Caucasus Mountains, in the west, the Great Hungarian Plain is an island of steppe separated from the main steppe by the mountains of Transylvania. On the north shore of the Black Sea, the Crimean Peninsula has some interior steppe, the Ural Mountains extend south to a point about 650 km northeast of the Caspian Sea. This is not a barrier to movement, but the area near the Caspian is quite dry. The Central Steppe or Kazakh Steppe extends from the Urals to Dzungaria, in the southeast is the densely populated Fergana Valley and west of it the great oasis cities of Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara along the Zarafshan River. The southern area has a history, while in the north. On the east side of the former Sino-Soviet border mountains extend north almost to the forest zone with only limited grassland in Dzungaria, Xinjiang is the northwestern province of China. The east-west Tien Shan Mountains divide it into Dzungaria in the north, Dzungaria is bounded by the Tarbagatai Mountains on the west and the Mongolian Altai Mountains on the east, neither of which is a significant barrier. Dzungaria has good grassland around the edges and a central desert and it often behaved as a westward extension of Mongolia and connected Mongolia to the Kazakh steppe. To the north of Dzungaria are mountains and the Siberian forest, to the south and west of Dzungaria, and separated from it by the Tianshan Mountains, is an area about twice the size of Dzungaria, the oval Tarim Basin. The Tarim Basin formed an island of civilization in the center of the steppe. The Northern Silk Road went along the north and south sides of the Tarim Basin, at the west end of the basin the Pamir Mountains connect the Tien Shan Mountains to the Himalaya Mountains. To the south, the Kunlun Mountains separate the Tarim Basin from the thinly peopled Tibetan Plateau, the Mongol Steppe includes both Mongolia and the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia. The two are separated by a dry area marked by the Gobi Desert

17.
Dzungaria
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Dzungaria is a geographical region in northwest China corresponding to the northern half of Xinjiang, also known as Beijiang. Bounded by the Tian Shan mountain range to the south and the Altai Mountains to the north, it covers approximately 777,000 km2, extending into western Mongolia and eastern Kazakhstan. Formerly the term could cover an area, conterminous with the Dzungar Khanate. In comparison to southern Xinjiang, Dzungaria is relatively well-integrated with the rest of China by rail, the name Dzungaria or Zungharia is a corruption of the Mongolian term Zűn Gar or Jüün Gar depending on the dialect of Mongolian used. Zűn/Jüün means left and Gar means hand, the name originates from the notion that the Western Mongols are on the left hand side when the Mongol Empire began its division into East and West Mongols. After this fragmentation, the western Mongolian nation was called Zuun Gar, however, Qing people began to think of both areas as part of one distinct region called Xinjiang. It is bounded by the Tian Shan to the south, the Altai Mountains to the northeast, the three corners are relatively open. The northern corner is the valley of the upper Irtysh River, the eastern corner of the basin leads to Gansu and the rest of China. In the south an easy pass leads from Ürümqi to the Turfan Depression, in the southwest the tall Borohoro Mountains branch of the Tian Shan separates the basin from the upper Ili River. The basin is similar to the larger Tarim Basin on the side of the Tian Shan Range. This is enough to sustain populations of wild camels, jerboas, the Dzungarian Basin is a structural basin with thick sequences of Paleozoic-Pleistocene rocks with large estimated oil reserves. The Gurbantunggut Desert, China’s second largest, is in the center of the basin, the Dzungarian basin does not have a single catchment center. The northernmost section of Dzungaria is part of the basin of the Irtysh River, the rest of the region is split into a number of endorheic basins. In particular, south of the Irtysh, the Ulungur River ends up in the endorheic Lake Ulungur, the Southwestern part of the Dzungarian basin drains into the Aibi Lake. In the west-central part of the region, streams flow into a group of lakes that include Lake Manas. Runoff from the mountains into the basin supplies several lakes. The ecologically rich habitats traditionally included meadows, marshlands, and rivers, however most of the land is now used for agriculture. It is a steppe and semi-desert basin surrounded by high mountains, the Tian Shan in the south

18.
Great Wall of China
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Several walls were being built as early as the 7th century BC, these, later joined together and made bigger and stronger, are now collectively referred to as the Great Wall. Especially famous is the wall built 220–206 BC by Qin Shi Huang, since then, the Great Wall has been rebuilt, maintained, and enhanced, the majority of the existing wall is from the Ming Dynasty. The Great Wall stretches from Dandong in the east to Lop Lake in the west, a comprehensive archaeological survey, using advanced technologies, has concluded that the Ming walls measure 8,850 km. This is made up of 6,259 km sections of wall,359 km of trenches and 2,232 km of natural defensive barriers such as hills. Another archaeological survey found that the wall with all of its branches measure out to be 21,196 km. The collection of fortifications now known as The Great Wall of China has historically had a number of different names in both Chinese and English. The Chinese character 城 is a compound of the place or earth radical 土 and 成. The longer Chinese name Ten-Thousand-Mile Long Wall came from Sima Qians description of it in the Records, though he did not name the walls as such. The AD493 Book of Song quotes the frontier general Tan Daoji referring to the wall of 10,000 miles, closer to the modern name. Since Chinas metrication in 1930, it has been equivalent to 500 metres or 1,600 feet. However, this use of ten-thousand is figurative in a manner to the Greek and English myriad. Because of the association with the First Emperors supposed tyranny. Instead, various terms were used in records, including frontier, rampart, barrier, the outer fortresses. Poetic and informal names for the wall included the Purple Frontier, only during the Qing period did Long Wall become the catch-all term to refer to the many border walls regardless of their location or dynastic origin, equivalent to the English Great Wall. The current English name evolved from accounts of the Chinese wall from early modern European travelers, by the 19th century, The Great Wall of China had become standard in English, French, and German, although other European languages continued to refer to it as the Chinese wall. The Chinese were already familiar with the techniques of wall-building by the time of the Spring, during this time and the subsequent Warring States period, the states of Qin, Wei, Zhao, Qi, Yan, and Zhongshan all constructed extensive fortifications to defend their own borders. Built to withstand the attack of small arms such as swords and spears, king Zheng of Qin conquered the last of his opponents and unified China as the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty in 221 BC. Intending to impose centralized rule and prevent the resurgence of feudal lords, to position the empire against the Xiongnu people from the north, however, he ordered the building of new walls to connect the remaining fortifications along the empires northern frontier

19.
Siberia
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Siberia is an extensive geographical region, and by the broadest definition is also known as North Asia. Siberia has historically been a part of Russia since the 17th century, the territory of Siberia extends eastwards from the Ural Mountains to the watershed between the Pacific and Arctic drainage basins. It stretches southwards from the Arctic Ocean to the hills of north-central Kazakhstan and to the borders of Mongolia. With an area of 13.1 million square kilometres, Siberia accounts for 77% of Russias land area and this is equivalent to an average population density of about 3 inhabitants per square kilometre, making Siberia one of the most sparsely populated regions on Earth. If it were a country by itself, it would still be the largest country in area, the origin of the name is unknown. Some sources say that Siberia originates from the Siberian Tatar word for sleeping land, another account sees the name as the ancient tribal ethnonym of the Sirtya, a folk, which spoke a language that later evolved into the Ugric languages. This ethnic group was assimilated to the Siberian Tatar people. The modern usage of the name was recorded in the Russian language after the Empires conquest of the Siberian Khanate, a further variant claims that the region was named after the Xibe people. The Polish historian Chycliczkowski has proposed that the name derives from the word for north. He said that the neighbouring Chinese, Arabs and Mongolians would not have known Russian and he suggests that the name is a combination of two words, su and bir. The region is of significance, as it contains bodies of prehistoric animals from the Pleistocene Epoch. Specimens of Goldfuss cave lion cubs, Yuka and another woolly mammoth from Oymyakon, a rhinoceros from the Kolyma River. The Siberian Traps were formed by one of the largest known volcanic events of the last 500 million years of Earths geological history. They continued for a million years and are considered a cause of the Great Dying about 250 million years ago. At least three species of human lived in Southern Siberia around 40,000 years ago, H. sapiens, H. neanderthalensis, the last was determined in 2010, by DNA evidence, to be a new species. Siberia was inhabited by different groups of such as the Enets, the Nenets, the Huns, the Scythians. The Khan of Sibir in the vicinity of modern Tobolsk was known as a prominent figure who endorsed Kubrat as Khagan of Old Great Bulgaria in 630, the Mongols conquered a large part of this area early in the 13th century. With the breakup of the Golden Horde, the autonomous Khanate of Sibir was established in the late 15th century, turkic-speaking Yakut migrated north from the Lake Baikal region under pressure from the Mongol tribes during the 13th to 15th century

20.
Xinjiang
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Xinjiang, officially the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is a provincial-level autonomous region of China in the northwest of the country. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and the 8th largest country subdivision in the world and it contains the disputed territory of Aksai Chin, which is administered by China. Xinjiang borders the countries of Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the rugged Karakoram, Kunlun, and Tian Shan mountain ranges occupy much of Xinjiangs borders, as well as its western and southern regions. Xinjiang also borders Tibet Autonomous Region and the provinces of Gansu, the most well-known route of the historical Silk Road ran through the territory from the east to its northwestern border. In recent decades, abundant oil and mineral reserves have been found in Xinjiang and it is home to a number of ethnic groups, including the Han, Kazakhs, Tajiks, Hui, Uyghur, Kyrgyz, Mongols, and Russians. More than a dozen autonomous prefectures and counties for minorities are in Xinjiang, older English-language reference works often refer to the area as Chinese Turkestan. Xinjiang is divided into the Dzungarian Basin in the north and the Tarim Basin in the south by a mountain range, only about 4. 3% of Xinjiangs land area is fit for human habitation. With a documented history of at least 2,500 years, the territory came under the rule of the Qing dynasty in the 18th century, which was later replaced by the Republic of China government. Since 1949, it has been part of the Peoples Republic of China following the Chinese Civil War, in 1954, Xinjiang Bingtuan was set up to strengthen the border defense against the Soviet Union, and also promote the local economy. In 1955, Xinjiang was turned into a region from a province. In the last decades, there have been tensions regarding Xinjiangs political status, amnesty International said that activists in Xinjiang have been arrested and tortured. Under the Han dynasty, which drove the Xiongnu empire out of the region in 60 BC, Xinjiang was previously known as Xiyu or Qurighar and this was in an effort to secure the profitable routes of the Silk Road. Dzungaria was known as Zhunbu and the Tarim Basin was known as Huijiang during the Qing dynasty before both regions were merged and became the region of Gansu Xinjiang, later simplified as Xinjiang. The name Xinjiang, which literally means New Frontier or New Borderland, was given during the Qing dynasty, according to the Chinese statesman Zuo Zongtangs report to the Emperor of Qing, Xinjiang means an old land newly returned. For instance, present-day Jinchuan County was known as Jinchuan Xinjiang, in the same manner, present-day Xinjiang was known as Xiyu Xinjiang and Gansu Xinjiang. After 1821, the Qing changed the names of the other regained regions, the name East Turkestan was created by Russian sinologist Hyacinth to replace the term Chinese Turkestan in 1829. East Turkestan was used traditionally to only refer to the Tarim Basin, in 1955, Xinjiang province was renamed Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The name that was proposed was simply Xinjiang Autonomous Region

21.
Mongol Empire
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The Mongol Empire existed during the 13th and 14th centuries and was the largest contiguous land empire in history. The Mongol Empire emerged from the unification of tribes in the Mongol homeland under the leadership of Genghis Khan. The empire grew rapidly under the rule of him and his descendants, the Toluids prevailed after a bloody purge of Ögedeid and Chagataid factions, but disputes continued even among the descendants of Tolui. Kublai successfully took power, but civil war ensued as Kublai sought unsuccessfully to control of the Chagatayid and Ögedeid families. The Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260 marked the point of the Mongol conquests and was the first time a Mongol advance had ever been beaten back in direct combat on the battlefield. In 1304, the three western khanates briefly accepted the suzerainty of the Yuan dynasty, but it was later taken by the Han Chinese Ming dynasty in 1368. What is referred to in English as the Mongol Empire was called the Ikh Mongol Uls, in the 1240s, one of Genghiss descendants, Güyük Khan, wrote a letter to Pope Innocent IV which used the preamble Dalai Khagan of the great Mongolian state. After the succession war between Kublai Khan and his brother Ariq Böke, Ariq limited Kublais power to the part of the empire. Kublai officially issued an edict on December 18,1271 to name the country Great Yuan to establish the Yuan dynasty. Some sources state that the full Mongolian name was Dai Ön Yehe Monggul Ulus, the area around Mongolia, Manchuria, and parts of North China had been controlled by the Liao dynasty since the 10th century. In 1125, the Jin dynasty founded by the Jurchens overthrew the Liao dynasty, in the 1130s the Jin dynasty rulers, known as the Golden Kings, successfully resisted the Khamag Mongol confederation, ruled at the time by Khabul Khan, great-grandfather of Temujin. The Mongolian plateau was occupied mainly by five powerful tribal confederations, Keraites, Khamag Mongol, Naiman, Mergid, khabuls successor was Ambaghai Khan, who was betrayed by the Tatars, handed over to the Jurchen, and executed. The Mongols retaliated by raiding the frontier, resulting in a failed Jurchen counter-attack in 1143, in 1147, the Jin somewhat changed their policy, signing a peace treaty with the Mongols and withdrawing from a score of forts. The Mongols then resumed attacks on the Tatars to avenge the death of their late khan, the Jin and Tatar armies defeated the Mongols in 1161. During the rise of the Mongol Empire in the 13th century and it is thought that as a result, a rapid increase in the number of war horses and other livestock significantly enhanced Mongol military strength. Known during his childhood as Temujin, Genghis Khan was the son of a Mongol chieftain, when he was young he was from one of Yesugis orphaned and deserted families, he rose very rapidly by working with Toghrul Khan of the Kerait. Kurtait was the most powerful Mongol leader during this time and was given the Chinese title Wang which means Prince, Temujin went to war with Wang Khan. After Temujin defeated Wang Khan he gave himself the name Genghis Khan and he then enlarged his Mongol state under himself and his kin

22.
Galdan Boshugtu Khan
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Choros Erdeniin Galdan was a Dzungar-Oirat Khan of the Dzungar Khanate. Galdans mother Yum Aga was a daughter of Güshi Khan, the first Khoshut-Oirat King of Tibet, at age of 7, Galdan was sent to Lhasa to be educated as a lama under the 5th Dalai Lama at Tashilhunpo Monastery. He spent 20 years studying Buddhist canons, philosophy, astronomy, astrology and basics of medicine, in this sense, he was one of the best educated kings in Mongolian history. He backed his brother Sengges claim the title Khan of the Dzungars against the pretensions of their half-brothers Tseten, with the support of Ochirtu Khan of the Khoshuud, Sengges solidified his rule 1661. Nevertheless, the two brothers never gave up their royal aspirations and in 1670 Tsetsen murdered Sengge in a family coup. When Galdans mother Amin-Dara arrived to Lhasa to inform Galdan of Sengges death, Galdan immediately renounced his status as a lama, after soundly defeating Tseten and Tsodba Batur in 1671, the Dalai Lama named Galdan Hongtaiji Crown Prince. After Sengges death, Galdan took his widow Anu-Dara, granddaughter of Ochirtu, conflict within the family soon erupted again when Ochirtu, fearing Galdans popularity, supported Galdans uncle and rival Choqur Ubashi. In 1678 Galdan forced Ochirtu to flee to Kokonur and established hegemony over the Oirats, the following year, the Dalai Lama bestowed on him the highest title of Boshoghtu Khan, or Devine Khan. Imams of the Naqshbandi lineage had replaced the Chagatayid Khans in the early 17th century, after the defeat of the White Mountain Khoja, their exiled ruler Afaq Khoja approached the 5th Dalai Lama for military assistance in 1677. By the request of the latter, Galdan overthrew the Black Mountain Khoja in the Dzungar conquest of Altishahr, Galdan decreed that the Turkestanis would be judged by their own law except in cases affecting the Dzungar Khanate. The Dzungars kept control over the Tarim Basin until 1757, in 1680 the Black Kyrgyz raided Moghulistan and occupied Yarkant. The inhabitants of Yarkant appealed to Galdan Khan for help, the Dzungars conquered Kashgar and Yarkant and Galdan had its ruler chosen by its inhabitants. Then he invaded the north of Tengeri Mountain in modern Kazakhstan the next year, he defeated Tauke Khans Kazakhs and he conquered Turfan and Hami the next year. In 1683 Galdans armies under Rabtan reached Tashkent and the Syr Darya, after that Galdan subjugated the Black Khirgizs and ravaged the Fergana Valley. From 1685 Galdans forces aggressively pushed the Kazakhs, while his general Rabtan took Taraz, and his main force forced the Kazakhs to migrate westwards. In 1687, he besieged the City of Turkistan, an important religious center for the Muslim Kazakhs. At first the Khalkha and Oirat Mongols were allies, bound by the provisions of the Mongol-Oirat code. In order to cement this union, Galdan attempted to ally with Zasaghtu Khan Shira who lost part of his subjects to Tushiyetu Khan Chakhundorji, Tushiyetu Khan attacked the right wing of the Khalkhas and killed Shira in 1687

23.
Dalai Lama
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The Dalai Lama /ˈdɑːlaɪ ˈlɑːmə/, /ˌdælaɪ ˈlɑːmə/ is a monk of the Gelug or Yellow Hat school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest of the schools of Tibetan Buddhism founded by Je Tsongkhapa. The Dalai Lama title was created by Altan Khan in 1578, the 14th and current Dalai Lama is Tenzin Gyatso. The Dalai Lama has always been an important figure of the Gelug tradition, although finding dominance in Central Tibet, the Dalai Lama has been an important figure beyond sectarian boundaries. The Dalai Lama figure is important for many reasons, since the time of the Fifth Dalai Lama his personage has always been a symbol of unification of the state of Tibet, where he has represented Buddhist values and traditions. The Dalai Lama is considered to be the successor in a line of tulkus who are believed to be incarnations of Avalokiteśvara, the name is a combination of the Mongolic word dalai meaning ocean and the Tibetan word བླ་མ་ meaning guru, teacher, mentor. The Tibetan word lama corresponds to the better known Sanskrit word guru, special Features of the Gelug Tradition. This government also enjoyed the patronage and protection of firstly Mongol kings of the Khoshut and Dzungar Khanates and this is according to The Book of Kadam, the main text of the Kadampa school, to which the First Dalai Lama, Gendun Drup, first belonged. In fact, this text is said to have ‘laid the foundation’ for the Tibetans later identification of the Dalai Lamas as incarnations of Avalokiteśvara and it traces the legend of the bodhisattva’s incarnations as early Tibetan kings and emperors such as Songsten Gampo and later as Dromtönpa. This lineage has been extrapolated by Tibetans up to and including the Dalai Lamas, thus, according to such sources, an informal line of succession of the present Dalai Lamas as incarnations of Avalokiteśvara stretches back much further than Gendun Drub. First, Tsongkhapa established three great monasteries around Lhasa in the province of Ü before he died in 1419, the 1st Dalai Lama soon became Abbot of the greatest one, Drepung, and developed a large popular power base in Ü. He later extended this to cover Tsang, where he constructed a great monastery, Tashi Lhunpo. The 2nd studied there before returning to Lhasa, where he became Abbot of Drepung, having reactivated the 1sts large popular followings in Tsang and Ü, the 2nd then moved on to southern Tibet and gathered more followers there who helped him construct a new monastery, Chokorgyel. He also established the method by which later Dalai Lama incarnations would be discovered through visions at the oracle lake, the 3rd built on his predecessors fame by becoming Abbot of the two great monasteries of Drepung and Sera. Thus most of Mongolia was added to the Dalai Lamas sphere of influence, after being given the Mongolian name Dalai, he returned to Tibet to found the great monasteries of Lithang in Kham, eastern Tibet and Kumbum in Amdo, north-eastern Tibet. The 4th was then born in Mongolia as the grandson of Altan Khan. Finally, in fulfilment of Avalokiteśvaras master plan, the 5th in the succession used the vast popular power base of devoted followers built up by his four predecessors, overall, they have played a monumental role in Asian literary, philosophical and religious history. Gendun Drup was the name of the monk who came to be known as the First Dalai Lama. Tsongkhapa largely modelled his new, reformed Gelugpa school on the Kadampa tradition, therefore, although Gendun Drup grew to be a very important Gelugpa lama, after he died in 1474 there was no question of any search being made to identify his incarnation

24.
Dzungar people
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The name Dzungar people, also written as Zunghar, referred to the several Oirat tribes who formed and maintained the Dzungar Khanate in the 17th and 18th centuries. Historically they were one of major tribes of the Four Oirat confederation and they were also known as the Eleuths or Ööled, from the Qing dynasty euphemism for the hated word Dzungar, and also called Kalmyks. In 2010,15,520 people claimed Ööled ancestry in Mongolia, an unknown number also live in China, Russia, and Kazakhstan. This confederation rose to power in what known as Dzungaria between the Altai Mountains and the Ili River Valley. Initially, the confederation consisted of the Oöled, Dorbet and Khoit tribes, later on, elements of the Khoshut and Torghut tribes were forcibly incorporated into the Dzungar military, thus completing the re-unification of the West Mongolian tribes. According to oral history, the Oöled and Dörbed tribes are the tribes to the Naiman. The Oöled shared the clan name Choros with the Dörvöd, zuun gar and Baruun gar formed the Oirats military and administrative organization. The Dzungar Olots and Choros became the ruling clans in the 17th century, in 1697, two relatives of Galdan Boshugtu Khan, Danjila and Rabdan, surrendered to the Qing Kangxi Emperor. Their people were organized into two Oolod banners and resettled in modern Bayankhongor Province, Mongolia. In 1731, five hundred households fled back to Dzungar territory while the remaining Oolods were deported to Hulun Buir, after 1761 some of them were resettled in Arkhangai Province. After a series of military conflicts that started in the 1680s. Clarke argued that the Qing campaign in 1757–58 amounted to the destruction of not only the Dzungar state. Amursana rejected the Qing arrangement and rebelled since he wanted to be leader of a united Dzungar nation, Qing scholar Wei Yuan estimated the total population of Dzungars before the fall at 600,000 people, or 200,000 households. Oirat officer Saaral betrayed and battled against the Oirats, during this war Kazakhs attacked dispersed Oirats and Altays. Historian Peter Perdue attributed the decimation of the Dzungars to an policy of extermination launched by Qianlong. Mark Levene, a historian whose recent research focus on genocide, has stated that the extermination of the Dzungars was arguably the eighteenth century genocide par excellence. The Dzungar genocide was completed by a combination of a smallpox epidemic, anti-Dzungar Uyghur rebels from the Turfan and Hami oases had submitted to Qing rule as vassals and requested Qing help for overthrowing Dzungar rule. Uyghur leaders like Emin Khoja were granted titles within the Qing nobility, and it was not until generations later that Dzungaria rebounded from the destruction and near liquidation of the Dzungars after the mass slayings of nearly a million Dzungars

25.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world

26.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time

27.
Standard Chinese
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Its pronunciation is based on the Beijing dialect, its vocabulary on the Mandarin dialects, and its grammar is based on written vernacular Chinese. Like other varieties of Chinese, Standard Chinese is a language with topic-prominent organization. It has more initial consonants but fewer vowels, final consonants, Standard Chinese is an analytic language, though with many compound words. There exist two standardised forms of the language, namely Putonghua in Mainland China and Guoyu in Taiwan, aside from a number of differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, Putonghua is written using simplified Chinese characters, while Guoyu is written using traditional Chinese characters. There are many characters that are identical between the two systems, in English, the governments of China and Hong Kong use Putonghua, Putonghua Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, and Mandarin, while those of Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, use Mandarin. The name Putonghua also has a long, albeit unofficial, history and it was used as early as 1906 in writings by Zhu Wenxiong to differentiate a modern, standard Chinese from classical Chinese and other varieties of Chinese. For some linguists of the early 20th century, the Putonghua, or common tongue/speech, was different from the Guoyu. The former was a prestige variety, while the latter was the legal standard. Based on common understandings of the time, the two were, in fact, different, Guoyu was understood as formal vernacular Chinese, which is close to classical Chinese. By contrast, Putonghua was called the speech of the modern man. The use of the term Putonghua by left-leaning intellectuals such as Qu Qiubai, prior to this, the government used both terms interchangeably. In Taiwan, Guoyu continues to be the term for Standard Chinese. The term Putonghua, on the contrary, implies nothing more than the notion of a lingua franca, Huayu, or language of the Chinese nation, originally simply meant Chinese language, and was used in overseas communities to contrast Chinese with foreign languages. Over time, the desire to standardise the variety of Chinese spoken in these communities led to the adoption of the name Huayu to refer to Mandarin and it also incorporates the notion that Mandarin is usually not the national or common language of the areas in which overseas Chinese live. The term Mandarin is a translation of Guānhuà, which referred to the lingua franca of the late Chinese empire, in English, Mandarin may refer to the standard language, the dialect group as a whole, or to historic forms such as the late Imperial lingua franca. The name Modern Standard Mandarin is sometimes used by linguists who wish to distinguish the current state of the language from other northern. Chinese has long had considerable variation, hence prestige dialects have always existed. Confucius, for example, used yǎyán rather than colloquial regional dialects, rime books, which were written since the Northern and Southern dynasties, may also have reflected one or more systems of standard pronunciation during those times

28.
Pinyin
–
Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks

29.
Tibetan alphabet
–
The Tibetan alphabet is an abugida used to write the Tibetic languages such as Tibetan, as well as Dzongkha, Sikkimese, Ladakhi, and sometimes Balti. The printed form of the alphabet is called uchen script while the cursive form used in everyday writing is called umê script. The alphabet is closely linked to a broad ethnic Tibetan identity, spanning across areas in Tibet, Bhutan, India. The Tibetan alphabet is of Indic origin and it is ancestral to the Limbu alphabet, the Lepcha alphabet, the creation of the Tibetan alphabet is attributed to Thonmi Sambhota of the mid-7th century. Tradition holds that Thonmi Sambhota, a minister of Songtsen Gampo, was sent to India to study the art of writing, the form of the letters is based on an Indic alphabet of that period. The most important, an official orthography aimed to facilitate the translation of Buddhist scriptures, Standard orthography has not altered since then, while the spoken language has changed by, for example, losing complex consonant clusters. As a result, in all modern Tibetan dialects, in particular in the Standard Tibetan of Lhasa and this divergence is the basis of an argument in favour of spelling reform, to write Tibetan as it is pronounced, for example, writing Kagyu instead of Bka-rgyud. In contrast, the pronunciation of the Balti, Ladakhi and Burig languages adheres more closely to the archaic spelling, in the Tibetan script, the syllables are written from left to right. Syllables are separated by a tsek, since many Tibetan words are monosyllabic, spaces are not used to divide words. The Tibetan alphabet has thirty basic letters, sometimes known as radicals, as in other Indic scripts, each consonant letter assumes an inherent vowel, in the Tibetan script its ཨ /a/. The alphabet ཨ /a/ is also the base for dependent vowels marks, although some Tibetan dialects are tonal, the language had no tone at the time of the scripts invention, and there are no dedicated symbols for tone. However, since tones developed from segmental features they can usually be predicted by the archaic spelling of Tibetan words. The unique aspect of the Tibetan script is that the consonants can be either as radicals, or they can be written in other forms. To understand how this works, one can look at the radical ཀ /ka/, in both cases, the symbol for ཀ /ka/ is used, but when the ར /ra/ is in the middle of the consonant and vowel, it is added as a subscript. On the other hand, when the ར /ra/ comes before the consonant and vowel, ར /ra/ actually changes form when it is above most other consonants, thus རྐ rka. However, an exception to this is the cluster རྙ /rnya/, similarly, the consonants ཝ /wa/, ར /ra/, and ཡ /ja/ change form when they are beneath other consonants, thus ཀྭ /kwa/, ཀྲ /kra/, ཀྱ /kja/. Besides being written as subscripts and superscripts, some consonants can also be placed in prescript, postscript, the third position, the post-postscript position is solely for the consonants ད /tʰa/ and ས /sa/. The superscript position above a radical is reserved for the consonants ར /ra/, ལ /la/, the vowels used in the alphabet are ཨ /a/, ཨི /i/, ཨུ /u/, ཨེ /e/, and ཨོ /o/

30.
Uyghur language
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Significant communities of Uyghur-speakers are located in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and various other countries have Uyghur-speaking expatriate communities. Uyghur belongs to the Karluk branch of the Turkic language family, like many other Turkic languages, Uyghur displays vowel harmony and agglutination, lacks noun classes or grammatical gender, and is a left-branching language with subject–object–verb word order. More distinctly Uyghur processes include, especially in dialects, vowel reduction. In addition to influence of other Turkic languages, Uyghur has historically been influenced strongly by Persian and Arabic, the modified Arabic-derived writing system is the most common and the only standard in China, although other writing systems are used for auxiliary and historical purposes. Unlike most Arabic-derived scripts, the Uyghur Arabic alphabet has mandatory marking of all due to modifications to the original Perso-Arabic script made in the 20th century. Two Latin and one Cyrillic alphabet are used, though to a much lesser extent. The Arabic and Latin alphabets both have 32 characters, the Middle Turkic languages are the direct ancestor of the Karluk languages, including Uyghur and the Uzbek language. Kagan Arik wrote that Modern Uyghur is not descended from Old Uyghur, rather, according to Gerard Clauson, Western Yugur is considered to be the true descendant of Old Uyghur, and is also called Neo-Uyghur. Modern Uyghur is not a descendant of Old Uyghur, but is descended from the Xākānī language described by Mahmud al-Kashgari in Dīwānu l-Luġat al-Turk, the Western Yugur language, although in geographic proximity, is more closely related to the Siberian Turkic languages in Siberia. Robert Dankoff wrote that the Turkic language spoken in Kashgar and used in Kara Khanid works was Karluk, robert Barkley Shaw wrote, In the Turkish of Káshghar and Yarkand. This would seem in many case to be a misnomer as applied to the language of Kashghar. Other Kara-Khanid writers wrote works in the Turki Karluk Khaqani language, yusuf Khass Hajib wrote the Kutadgu Bilig. Ahmad bin Mahmud Yukenaki wrote the Hibat al-ḥaqāyiq, after Chaghatai fell into extinction, the standard versions of Uyghur and Uzbek were developed from dialects in the Chagatai-speaking region, showing abundant Chaghatai influence. Uyghur language today shows considerable Persian influence as a result from Chagatai, Modern Uyghur religious literature includes the Taẕkirah, biographies of Islamic religious figures and saints. The Taẕkirah is a genre of literature written about Sufi Muslim saints in Altishahr, the shrines of Sufi Saints are revered in Altishahr as one of Islams essential components and the tazkirah literature reinforced the sacredness of the shrines. Anyone who does not believe in the stories of the saints is guaranteed hellfire by the tazkirahs and it is written, And those who doubt Their Holinesses the Imams will leave this world without faith, and on Judgement Day their faces will be black. In the Tazkirah of the Four Sacrificed Imams, Shaw translated extracts from the Tazkiratul-Bughra on the Muslim Turki war against the infidel Khotan. The Turki-language Tadhkirah i Khwajagan was written by M. Sadiq Kashghari, historical works like the Tārīkh-i amniyya and Tārīkh-i ḥamīdi were written by Musa Sayrami

31.
Johan Gustaf Renat
–
Johan Gustaf Renat was a Swedish soldier and cartographer. He is mainly known for his role in bringing detailed maps of Central Asia to Europe after several years in captivity, Renat was the son of Dutch Jewish immigrants to Sweden, who took Swedish nationality in 1681, the year before his birth. During the Great Northern War against Russia, he served in the army of Charles XII as a warrant officer in the artillery and he was taken prisoner after the Battle of Poltava in 1709. In 1711 Renat was sent to Tobolsk where many Swedish officers were kept as prisoners of war and he entered Russian service on the condition of not fighting against Sweden. Renat helped produce maps of Siberia for the Russian government, in 1716 Renat and other Swedish prisoners-of-war took part in Ivan Buchholzs expedition to explore the gold deposits around Lake Yamysh on the Irtysh River. The expedition was ambushed by a Dzungar force, and Renat spent the following seventeen years in Dzungar captivity, in Dzungaria, Renat helped the khans Tsewang Rabtan and Galdan Tseren to organize their campaigns against Qing rule in Central Asia. Among other things, he organized a regiment and helped the Dzungars to cast cannons. Renat also met a Swedish woman who was also a Dzungar captive and this was Brigitta Scherzenfeldt, who hailed from Scania. Twice widowed, she had married a German prisoner who had taken Russian service and their convoy was seized by Dzungar raiders in 1716, who killed her husband. In 1733, Renat and his wife were allowed to leave and they returned the following year to Stockholm, accompanied with four Dzungar female servants, who were baptized when they arrived in Sweden. Renats family bought a house in Gamla stan where they settled down, in 1739, Renat was promoted to the rank of captain in the Swedish army. Renat brought two detailed maps of Central Asia back to Sweden, but these maps were left in relative obscurity for many years. In 1878, copies of the maps were discovered by the Swedish author August Strindberg and he sponsored their republication in Russia in 1881. A decade later the originals were discovered in the library of Uppsala University, Strindberg remained interested in the maps for many years. Philip Johan von Strahlenberg Baddeley, John F. Russia, Mongolia, 1-2, London, Macmillan and Company,1919. Reprinted New York, Burt Franklin, 196-, China Marches West, The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia. Cambridge, MA, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,2005, carte de la Dzoungarie, dressée par le suédois Renat pendant sa captivité chez les kalmouks de 1716-1733. St. Petersburg, Societé Impériale Russe de Géographie,1881, Russian Maps at the Royal Library

32.
Zhetysu
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Zhetysu or Semirechye is a historical name of a part of Central Asia, corresponding to the South-Eastern part of modern Kazakhstan. It owes its name, meaning seven rivers in Kazakh and Persian, when the region was incorporated into the Russian Empire in the 19th century, it became known in Russian as Semirechye, which is a Russian calque of the Kazakh Zhetysu. The name has also transcribed as Semiryechye, Semireche, Semirechiye, Semirechie. Zhetysu falls into todays Almaty Province, which is part of Kazakhstan, the lands of the 19th-century Semirechye Oblast included the steppes south of Lake Balkhash and parts of the Tian Shan Mountains around Lake Issyk Kul. In the south, the region embraces the intricate systems of the Ala-Tau and the Tian Shan. Two ranges of the former, the Trans-Ili Ala-tau and the Terskey Ala-tau, stretch along the shore of Lake Issyk Kul. Another mountain complex of lower elevation runs north-westwards from the Trans-Ili Ala-tau towards the southern extremity of Lake Balkhash. In the north, where the province bordered Semipalatinsk, it included the parts of the Tarbagatai range. The remainder of the province consisted of a steppe in the north-east. Southwards from these at the foot of the mountains and at the entrance to the valleys, the climate in Zhetysu is thoroughly continental. In the Balkhash steppes the winter is very cold, the lake freezes every year, with temperatures falling to -11 °C. In the Ala-kul steppes the winds blow away the snow, the passage from winter to spring is very abrupt, and the steppes are rapidly clothed with vegetation, which, however, is soon scorched by the sun. The Chu River also rises in the Tian Shan mountains and flows north-westwards through the former Akmolinsk province of the Governor-Generalship of the Steppes, the Naryn River flows south-westwards along a longitudinal valley of the Tian Shan, and enters the Fergana Valley to join the Syr Darya. The population was estimated in 1906 as 1,080,700, Kazakhs formed 76% of the population, Russians 14%, Taranchi 5. 7%. BC. e. the Iranian Sakas established their first state, in the mid 6th century, the Turkic nomads subordinated Zhetysu, Central Kazakhstan, and Khorezm. The area belonged to Dzungar Khanate in the 17th century, when Dzungar Khanate was eliminated by Qing China in 1755 the area formed part of empire and was under the direct rule by General of Ili, headquartered at the fort of Huiyuan,30 km west of Ghulja. Most of Zhetysu was annexed by the Russian Empire from Qing China in 1854, before the outbreak of the Crimean War, which delayed the southern advance. The two major Russian fortresses and garrisons in the region, Verniy and Pishpek, were founded in 1854 on the sites of former Kokandian fortresses on the Steppe frontier, the Semirechye Cossack Host was created in 1867 as a branch of the Siberian Cossack Host

33.
Khalkha Mongols
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The Khalkha is the largest subgroup of Mongol people in Mongolia since the 15th century. The two original major Khalkha groups were ruled by the male line descendants of Dayan Khan. The Baarin, Khongirad, Jaruud, Baigut, and the Ozeed became Dayan Khans fifth son Achibolods subjects, the Thirteen Khalkhas of the Far North are the major subethnic group of the independent state of Mongolia. They number 1,610,400 of Mongolias population, the Khalkha or Halh dialect is the standard written language of Mongolia. The term Халх has always puzzled linguists and historians, in the similar manner, the sub-ethnic groups within the Khalkha Unit have been historically recorded in books, journals, and documents as Jalair Khalkha, Sartuul Khalkha, Tanghut Khalkha etc. Lastly, Mongolians have always linked the term Халх to the name of the Khalkhyn Gol, Dayan Khan created Khalkha Tumen out of Mongols residing in the territory of present-day central Mongolia and northern part of Inner Mongolia. In Mongolian historical sources such as Erdeniin Erih it clearly stated how Khalkha Tumen was created and this special ceremony is maintained by only southern khalkhas and no other southern Mongols have such rituals. Under Dayan Khan, the Khalkha were organized as one of three tümen of the Left Wing, Dayan Khan installed the fifth son Alchu Bolad and the eleventh son Geresenje on the Khalkha. The former became the founder of the Five Halh of Southern Mongolia and they were called Inner Khalkha and Outer Khalkha respectively, by the Manchus. Mongolian chronicles called Geresenje as Khong Tayiji of the Jalayir, which indicates that the part of the Khalkha were descendants of the Jalayir tribe. The Five Halh consisted of five tribes called Jarud, Baarin, Onggirat, Bayaud and they lived around the Shira Mören valley east of the Greater Khingan. They clashed with but were conquered by the rising Manchus. The Five Khalkha except for the Jarud and the Baarin were organized into the Eight Banners, note that Khalkha Left Banner of Juu Uda League and Khalkha Right Banner of Ulaanchab League were offshoots of the Seven Khalkha. The Seven Khalkha were involved in fights against the Oyirad in the west. Geresenjes descendants formed the houses of Tüsheet Khan, Zasagt Khan and they preserved their independence until they had to seek help from the Kangxi Emperor of the Manchu Qing dynasty against the Zungar leader Galdan in 1688. In 1725 the Yongzheng Emperor gave Tsering independence from the house of Tüsheet Khan, the Khalkha led the Mongolian independence movement in the 20th century. After enduring countless hardships, they established the independent state of Mongolia in northern Mongolia, the overwhelming majority of Khalkha Mongols now reside in the modern state of Mongolia. However, there are four small banners in China,2 in Inner Mongolia,1 in Qinghai, there are also several groups among the Buriats in Russia, however, they no longer retain the Khalkha self-identity, culture, and language

34.
Mongols
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The Mongols are an East-Central Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia and Chinas Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. They also live as minorities in other regions of China, as well as in Russia, Mongolian people belonging to the Buryat and Kalmyk subgroups live predominantly in the Russian federal subjects of Buryatia and Kalmykia. The Mongols are bound together by a heritage and ethnic identity. Their indigenous dialects are known as the Mongolian language. The ancestors of the modern-day Mongols are referred to as Proto-Mongols, broadly defined, the term includes the Mongols proper, Buryats, Oirats, the Kalmyk people and the Southern Mongols. The latter comprises the Abaga Mongols, Abaganar, Aohans, Baarins, Gorlos Mongols, Jalaids, Jaruud, Khishigten, Khuuchid, Muumyangan, the designation Mongol briefly appeared in 8th century records of Tang China to describe a tribe of Shiwei. It resurfaced in the late 11th century during the Khitan-ruled Liao dynasty, after the fall of the Liao in 1125, the Khamag Mongols became a leading tribe on the Mongolian Plateau. However, their wars with the Jurchen-ruled Jin dynasty and the Tatar confederation had weakened them, in the thirteenth century, the word Mongol grew into an umbrella term for a large group of Mongolic-speaking tribes united under the rule of Genghis Khan. In various times Mongolic peoples have been equated with the Scythians, the Magog, based on Chinese historical texts the ancestry of the Mongolic peoples can be traced back to the Donghu, a nomadic confederation occupying eastern Mongolia and Manchuria. The identity of the Xiongnu is still debated today, although some scholars maintain that they were proto-Mongols, they were more likely a multi-ethnic group of Mongolic and Turkic tribes. It has been suggested that the language of the Huns was related to the Hünnü, the Donghu are mentioned by Sima Qian as already existing in Inner Mongolia north of Yan in 699–632 BCE along with the Shanrong. Mentions in the Yi Zhou Shu and the Classic of Mountains, the Xianbei chieftain was appointed joint guardian of the ritual torch along with Xiong Yi. These early Xianbei came from the nearby Zhukaigou culture in the Ordos Desert, where maternal DNA corresponds to the Mongol Daur people, the Zhukaigou Xianbei had trade relations with the Shang. In the late 2nd century, the Han dynasty scholar Fu Qian wrote in his commentary Jixie that Shanrong, againm in Inner Mongolia another closely connected core Mongolic Xianbei region was the Upper Xiajiadian culture where the Donghu confederation was centered. After the Donghu were defeated by Xiongnu king Modu Chanyu, the Xianbei, tadun Khan of the Wuhuan was the ancestor of the proto-Mongolic Kumo Xi. The Wuhuan are of the direct Donghu royal line and the New Book of Tang says that in 209 BCE, the Xianbei, however, were of the lateral Donghu line and had a somewhat separate identity, although they shared the same language with the Wuhuan. In 49 CE the Xianbei ruler Bianhe raided and defeated the Xiongnu, killing 2000, the Xianbei reached their peak under Tanshihuai Khan who expanded the vast, but short lived, Xianbei state. Three prominent groups split from the Xianbei state as recorded by the Chinese histories, the Rouran, the Khitan people, besides these three Xianbei groups, there were others such as the Murong, Duan and Tuoba

35.
Mongolian nobility
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The Mongolian nobility arose between the 10th and 12th centuries, became prominent in the 13th century, and essentially governed Mongolia until the early 20th century. The Mongolian word for nobility, Yazgurtan, derives from the Mongol word yazgur, Khaan, the supreme ruler of the Mongol Empire. Noyon, meaning King of a State, a ruler of a state under the Mongol Empire. Jinong, meaning Crown Prince, the heir apparent of the Great Khaan, during the Yuan dynasty, the Jinong resided in Karakorum and administered ceremonial events. Mirza, a Persian term meaning Prince, Tumetu-iin Noyan, meaning Commander of a Tümen. A tümen was a unit of 10,000 troops. There were initially only nine tümens in the Mongol Empire in 1206, mingghan-u Noyan, meaning Commander of a Mingghan. A mingghan was a unit of 1,000 troops. Jagutu-iin Darga, meaning Commander of a Zuut, a zuut was a military unit of 100 troops. Arban-u Darga, meaning Commander of an Aravt, an aravt was a military unit of 10 troops. Cherbi, a title for a Kheshig commander, bey, a Turkish term meaning Chieftain. Begum, a Turkish term used to refer to the wife or daughter of a bey, gonji, referred to a princess or noble lady. Behi, referred to a noble lady, Khaan, the supreme ruler of the Northern Yuan Empire. Khan, a title for a Mongol feudal lord, by the mid-16th century, there were a number of khans in Mongolia as local feudal lords started calling themselves khan. Note that this khan is different from khaan, khaan was reserved for the supreme ruler only, Jinong, the crown prince or heir apparent of the Khaan. He resided in the Inner Mongolia region, from the 15th century, the title became a hereditary one and was no longer reserved exclusively for the heir apparent of the Khaan. Khong Tayiji, originated from the Chinese term huangtaizi and it was used to refer to a descendant of Genghis Khan who had his own fief. Taiji, a title for a descendant of Genghis Khan, Wang, a title for a descendant of Qasar or any of Genghis Khans brothers who had his own fief

36.
Culture of Mongolia
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The Culture of Mongolia has been heavily influenced by the Mongol nomadic way of life. Other important influences are from Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism, and from China, since the 20th century, Russian and, via Russia, European cultures have had a strong effect on Mongolia. Among the topics that are mentioned from the oldest works of Mongolian literature to modern pop songs are love for parents and homesickness. Horses have always played an important role in life as well as in the arts. Mongols have a lot of heroes from the ancient time. Hospitality is so important in the steppes that it is taken for granted. The Mongolian word for hero, baatar, appears frequently in personal names and it can be seen from Mongolian perspective as “the look in the eye of a horse that is racing where it wants to go, no matter what the rider wants. The ger is part of the Mongolian national identity, ger also means home, and other words are derived from its word stem. For example, gerlekh means to marry, since ancient times Tengrism was the dominant belief system of the Mongols and still retains significant importance in their mythology. During the era of the Great Khans, Mongolia practiced freedom of worship and is still an element of the Mongol character. In the 17th century, Tibetan Buddhism became the dominant religion in Mongolia, traditional Shamanism was, except in some remote regions, suppressed and marginalized. On the other hand, a number of practices, like ovoo worshiping, were incorporated into Buddhist liturgy. Tibetan Buddhism is a religion with a large number of deities. This inspired the creation of objects including images in painting. After the Stalinist purges in the 1930s, both Buddhism and Shamanism were virtually outlawed in the Mongolian Peoples Republic, in Inner Mongolia, traditional religion was heavily affected by the Cultural Revolution. Since the 1990s, a number of Christian sects are trying to gain a foothold in Mongolia, about 4% of the Mongolian population is Muslim. Mongolians traditionally were afraid of misfortunes and believe in good and bad omens, misfortune might be attracted by talking about negative things or by persons that are often talked about. They might also be sent by some malicious shaman enraged by breaking some taboo, like stepping on a threshold, desecrating waters or mountains

37.
Mongolic languages
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The Mongolic languages are a group of languages spoken in East-Central Asia, mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas plus in Kalmykia. The closest relative of the Mongolic languages appears to be the extinct language Khitan, some linguists have grouped Mongolic with Turkic, Tungusic, and possibly Koreanic and Japonic as part of the controversial Altaic family, but this has been widely discredited. In another classificational approach, there is a tendency to call Central Mongolian a language consisting of Mongolian proper, Oirat and Buryat, within Mongolian proper, they then draw a distinction between Khalkha on the one hand and Southern Mongolian on the other hand. A less common subdivision of Central Mongolian is to divide it into a Central dialect, an Eastern dialect, a Western dialect, and a Northern dialect. Another problem lies in the comparability of terminology as Western linguists use language and dialect, while Mongolian linguists use the Grimmian trichotomy language, dialect. Proto-Mongolic, the language of the modern Mongolic languages, is very close to Middle Mongol, the language spoken at the time of Genghis Khan. Most features of modern Mongolic languages can thus be reconstructed from Middle Mongol, an exception would be the voice suffix like -caga- do together, which can be reconstructed from the modern languages but is not attested in Middle Mongol. One can speculate that the languages of Donghu, Wuhuan, the closest relative of the languages traced back to Proto-Mongolic appears to be the medieval Khitan language. Khitan has been described as Para-Mongolic, not part of the Mongolic family, once again on the Tabgač language. Ethnic map of Mongolia Monumenta Altaica grammars, texts, dictionaries and bibliographies of Mongolian and other Altaic languages

38.
Proto-Mongols
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The proto-Mongols emerged from an area that had been inhabited by humans and predecessor hominin species as far back as the Stone Age over 800,000 years ago. The people there went through the Bronze and Iron Ages, forming alliances, peopling. The destruction of the Uyghur Khaganate by the Yenisei Kirghiz resulted in the end of Turkic dominance in Mongolia, over the next few hundred years, the Chinese subtly encouraged warfare among the Mongols as a way of keeping them distracted from invading China. Archaeological evidence proves that early Stone Age hominins habitated in Mongolia 850,000 years ago, by the first millennium BC, bronze-working peoples lived in Mongolia. With the appearance of iron weapons by the 3rd century BC, the origins of more modern inhabitants are found among the forest hunters and nomadic tribes of Inner Asia. During most of recorded history, this has been an area of constant ferment from which emerged numerous migrations and invasions to the southeast, to the southwest, by the eighth century BC, the inhabitants of Mongolian western part evidently were nomadic Indo-European speakers, either Scythians or Yuezhi. In central and eastern parts of Mongolia were many tribes that were primarily Mongol in their ethnologic characteristics. The Xiongnu were a group of nomads who dominated the Asian Steppe from the late 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD, although it is not yet known whether they were proto-Mongols. Fortification walls built by various Chinese warring states were connected to make a 2300-kilometer Great Wall along the northern border, as a barrier to further nomadic inroads. Endemic warfare between these two nomadic peoples reached a climax in the part of the 3rd century and the early decades of the 2nd century BC. The Yuezhi then migrated to the southwest where, early in the 2nd century, they began to appear in the Amu Darya Valley to change the course of history in Bactria, Iran, and eventually India. Meanwhile, the Xiongnu again raided northern China about 200 BCE, by the middle of the 2nd century BCE, they controlled all of northern and western China north of the Yellow River. Following these victories, the Chinese expanded into the later known as Manchuria, Mongolia, the Korean Peninsula. The Xiongnu, once more turning their attention to the west, the descendants of the Yuezhi and their Chinese rulers, however, formed a common front against the Xiongnu and repelled them. During the next century, as Chinese strength waned, border warfare between the Chinese and the Xiongnu was almost incessant, gradually the nomads forced their way back into Gansu and the northern part of what is now Chinas Xinjiang. In about the middle of the first century CE, a revitalized Eastern Han slowly recovered these territories, driving the Xiongnu back into the Altai Mountains and the steppes north of the Gobi. There are many similarities between the Xiongnu and Mongols such as yurt on cart, mounted use of the composite bow, board game, horn bow. The Mongolian long song is believed to back at least 2000 years

39.
Keraites
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The Keraites were one of the five dominant Turkic or Turco-Mongol tribal confederations in the Altai-Sayan region during the 12th century. They had converted to the Church of the East in the early 11th century and are one of the sources of the European Prester John legend. Their original territory was expansive, corresponding to much of what is now Mongolia, vasily Bartold located them along the upper Onon and Kherlen rivers and along the Tuul river. They were defeated by Genghis Khan in 1203 and became influential in the rise of the Mongol Empire, in modern Mongolian, the confederation is spelled Хэрэйд. In English, the name is adopted as Keraites, alternatively Kerait, or Kereyit. One common theory sees the name as a cognate with the Mongolian хар/khar and Turcic qarā for black, there have been various other Mongol and Turcic tribes with names involving the term, which are often conflated. According to the early 14th-century work Jami al-tawarikh by Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, Mongol legend traced the back to eight brothers with unusually dark faces. Kerait was the name of the leading clan, while the clans of his brothers are recorded as Jirkin, Konkant, Sakait, Tumaut. Other researchers also suggested that the Mongolian name Khereid may be an ancient totem name derived from the root Kheree for raven and it is unclear whether the Keraites should be classified as Turkic or Mongol in origin. They are first noted in Syriac Church records which mention them being absorbed into the Church of the East around AD1000 by Metropolitan Abdisho of Merv. After the Zubu confederacy broke up, the Keraites retained their dominance on the right up until they were absorbed into Genghis Khans Mongolian state. At the height of its power, the Keraites khanate was organized along the lines as the Naimans. A section is dedicated to the Keraites by Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, the historian of the Genghisid court in Persia. The people was divided into a faction and an outer faction. The central faction served as the personal army and was composed of warriors from many different tribes with no loyalties to anyone. This made the central faction more of a quasi-feudal state than a genuine tribe, the outer faction was composed of tribes that pledged obedience to the khan, but lived on their own tribal pastures and functioned semi-autonomously. The capital of the Keraite khanate was a place called Orta Balagasun, Markus Buyruk Khan, was a Keraite leader who also led the Zubu confederacy. In 1100, he was killed by the Liao Dynasty, Kurchakus Buyruk Khan was a son and successor of Bayruk Markus, among whose wives was Toreqaimish Khatun, daughter of Korchi Buiruk Khan of the Naiman

40.
Merkit
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The Merkit was one of the five major Mongol tribal confederations in the 12th century Mongolian Plateau. The Merkits lived in the basins of the Selenga and lower Orkhon River, after a struggle of over 20 years, they were defeated in 1200 by Genghis Khan and were incorporated into the Mongol Empire. The word Merged is a form derived from the Mongolian word mergen. The word is used in many phrases in which it connotes magic, oracles, divination, augury. Mongolian language has no morphological or grammatical distinction between nouns and adjectives, so mergen may mean a sage as much as wise or mean skillful just as much as a master. Merged becomes plural as in ones or skillful markspeople. In the general sense, mergen usually denotes someone who is skillful, the Mergeds were a confederation of three tribes, inhabiting the basin of the Selenga and Orkhon Rivers. The Merkits were related to the Mongols, Naimans, Keraites, Temüjins mother Hoelun, originally from the Olkhonud, had been engaged to the Merkit chief Yehe Chiledu by 1153. She was abducted by Temüjins father Yesugei, while being escorted home by Yehe Chiledu, in turn, Temüjins new wife Börte was kidnapped by Merkit raiders from their campsite by the Onon river around 1181 and given to one of their warriors. Temüjin, supported by his blood brother Jamukha and his foster-father Tooril Khan of the Keraites, attacked the Merkit, the Mergids were dispersed after this attack. Shortly thereafter she gave birth to a son named Jochi, temüjin accepted paternity but the question lingered throughout Jochis life. These incidents caused a strong animosity between Temüjins family and the Merkits, over the next two decades, he attacked them several times. By the time he had united the other Mongol tribes and received the title Chinggis Khan in 1206 and those who survived were likely absorbed by other Mongol tribes and others who fled to the Kipchaks mixed with them. In 1215-1218, Jochi and Subutai crushed the remnants of them under their former leader Toghta Bekis family, the Mongols clashed with the Kankalis or the Kipchakss because they had sheltered the Merged. Genghis Khan had a Merged khatun named Khulan and she died while Mongol forces besieged a Kievan Rus settlement in Ryazan in 1236. In 1236, during the Mongol invasion of Volga Bulgaria, a body of the Merkit was found in the area of land dominated by the Bulgar, few Mergeds achieved prominent position among the Mongols, but they were classified as Mongols in Mongolian society. Great Khan Guyuks beloved khatun Oghul Qaimish, who was a regent from 1248-1251, was a Merged woman, the traditionalist Bayan and his cousin Toghta served as Grand councilors of the Yuan Dynasty in China and Mongolia. After the fall of the Yuan Dynasty, they were a clan of a banner in Northern Yuan dynasty

41.
Tatar confederation
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Tatar was one of the five major Mongol tribal confederations in the Mongolian Plateau in the 12th century. The name Tatar was first recorded on the Kul Tigin monument as Otuz Tatar Bodun,732, subsequently the wider region was referred to by Europeans as Tartary or Tartaria. The Tatars inhabited the north-eastern Gobi in the 5th century and the Tatars became subjects of the Khitan Liao dynasty in the 10th century, after the fall of the Liao, the Tatars experienced pressure from the Jurchen Jin dynasty and were urged to fight against the other Mongol tribes. The Tatars lived on the pastures around Hulun Nuur and Buir Nuur. After the establishment of the Mongol Empire, the Tatars were subjugated by the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan, under the leadership of his grandson Batu Khan, they moved westwards, driving with them many of the Turkic peoples toward the plains of Russia in the Turkic migrations. Their name was used by Russians and Europeans to denote Mongols as well as Turkic peoples under Mongol rule, later, it was used for any Turkic or even Mongolic-speaking people encountered by Russians

42.
Naimans
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The Naiman is the name of a tribe originating in Mongolia. In The Secret History of the Mongols, the Naiman subtribe the Güchügüd are mentioned, according to Russian Turkologist Nikolai Aristovs view, the Naiman Khanates western border reached the Irtysh River and its eastern border reached the Mongolian Tamir River. The Altai Mountains and southern Altai Republic were part of the Naiman Khanate and they had diplomatic relations with the Kara-Khitans, and were subservient to them until 1177. Some scholars classified them as a Turkic people from Sekiz Oghuz, like the Khitans and the Uyghurs, many of them were Nestorian Christians or Buddhists. When the last tayang Khan was killed after a battle with Genghis Khan in 1203, Kuchlug was well received there and the Khitan Khan gave him his daughter in marriage. Kuchlug soon began plotting against his new father-in-law, and after he usurped the throne, but his action was opposed by local people and he was later defeated by the Mongols under Jebe. Although the Naiman Khanlig was crushed by the Mongols, they were seen in part of the Mongol Empire. Ogedeis great khatun Töregene might have been from this tribe, hulegu had a Naiman general, Ketbuqa, who died in the battle of Ain Jalut in 1260. The modern Naiman tribe is a Mongol ethnic group in Naiman Banner, Inner Mongolia of China, the clan Naiman changed the clan name and mixed with other tribes in Mongolia. There is a population of Naimans in Afghanistan. They belong to the Hazara tribe and reside in the Sheikh Ali valley, modern Kazakh historians claim that more than 2 millions of the Kazakh population are Naimans. Some Naimans dissimilated with the Kyrgyz and Uzbek ethnicities and are found among them. Naimans are also one of the tribe among Kazakhs in the Uzbekistan, they also exist among Kazakhs in Kyrgyzstan. See Naimans introduction in Kazakh language, Kazakh shezhire, the Naimans might have been Christians in the early 13th century. However, there is no evidence to support this claim. They remained so after the Mongol conquest and were among the wave of Christians to enter China with Kublai Khan. The Naimans who settled in the western khanates of the Mongol Empire all eventually converted to Islam, there was a tradition that the Naimans and their Christian relatives, the Keraites, descended from the Biblical Magi. However, Kitbuqa was slain and his army defeated at the Battle of Ain Jalut

43.
Khamag Mongol
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Khamag Mongol was a major Mongolic tribal confederation on the Mongolian Plateau in the 12th century. It is sometimes considered a predecessor state to the Mongol Empire. Existence of a mysterious tribal power known in Mongol tradition as Khamag Mongol Uls recorded in sources of Khitan Liao dynasty in North China. After the fall of Liao dynasty in 1125, the Khamag Mongols began to play an important role on the Mongolian plains and they occupied one of the most fertile lands of the country, the basins of the river Onon, Kherlen and Tuul Rivers in the Khentii Mountains. The Taichiud was one of the three tribes in the Khamag Mongol Khanate of Mongolia during the 12th century and whose people lived in the southern part of Russian Zabaykalsky Krai. Zabaykalsky Krai and the Mongolian Khentii Province were core regions of the Khamag Mongol Khanate, the Khamags consisted of the four core clans Khiyad, Taichuud, Jalairs and Jirukhen. The first khan of Khamag Mongol recorded in history is Khabul Khan from the Borjigin clan, Khabul Khan successfully repelled the invasions of the Jurchen Jin armies. Khabul Khan was succeeded by Ambaghai Khagann of the Taichiud, Ambagai was captured by the Tatar confederation while delivering his daughter for marriage to their leadership. He was handed over to the Jin, who executed him. Ambaghai was succeeded by Hotula Khan, a son of Khabul Khan, Hotula Khan engaged the Tatars in 13 battles in an effort to obtain vengeance for the death of Ambagai Khan. Khamag Mongol was unable to elect a khan after Hotula died, however, Khabuls grandson Yesugei, who was a chief of the Khiyad tribe, was an effective and preeminent leader of Khamag Mongol. Temujin, the future Genghis Khan, was born into Yesukheis family as the first son in Delüün Boldog on the reaches of the Onon river in 1162. Yesukhei was poisoned by the Tatars in 1170 and shortly after Yesukhei died, the Khamag Mongol began to disintegrate after Yesugeis death in 1171. Political anarchy and a power vacuum lasted until 1189 when Temujin became the Khan of the Khamag Mongol, war broke soon out between other Mongol tribes. Temujins friend Jamukha was recognized by the tribes as Gur-Khan in 1201 but he was defeated by the alliance of Khamag Mongol. When Tooril Khan refused to cement the alliance with the Khamag, Temujin united all clans on the Mongolian plateau at last in 1206, when he was given the title Genghis Khan. List of medieval Mongol tribes and clans Akademiiya nauk SSSR - History of the Mongolian Peoples Republic, house, Central Dept. of Oriental Literature,1973 Bat-Ochir Bold - Mongolian Nomadic Society, St. Martins Press,1999

44.
Yuan dynasty
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The Yuan dynasty, officially the Great Yuan, was the empire or ruling dynasty of China established by Kublai Khan, leader of the Mongolian Borjigin clan. His realm was, by point, isolated from the other khanates and controlled most of present-day China and its surrounding areas. Some of the Mongolian Emperors of the Yuan mastered the Chinese language, while others used their native language. The Yuan dynasty is considered both a successor to the Mongol Empire and an imperial Chinese dynasty and it was the khanate ruled by the successors of Möngke Khan after the division of the Mongol Empire. In official Chinese histories, the Yuan dynasty bore the Mandate of Heaven, following the Song dynasty, the dynasty was established by Kublai Khan, yet he placed his grandfather Genghis Khan on the imperial records as the official founder of the dynasty as Taizu. In addition to Emperor of China, Kublai Khan also claimed the title of Great Khan, supreme over the other khanates, the Chagatai, the Golden Horde. As such, the Yuan was also referred to as the Empire of the Great Khan. However, while the claim of supremacy by the Yuan emperors was at times recognized by the khans, their subservience was nominal. In 1271, Kublai Khan imposed the name Great Yuan, establishing the Yuan dynasty, dà Yuán is from the clause 大哉乾元 in the Commentaries on the Classic of Changes section regarding Qián. The counterpart in Mongolian language was Dai Ön Ulus, also rendered as Ikh Yuan Üls or Yekhe Yuan Ulus, in Mongolian, Dai Ön is often used in conjunction with the Yeke Mongghul Ulus, resulting in Dai Ön Yeke Mongghul Ulus, meaning Great Mongol State. Nevertheless, both terms can refer to the khanate within the Mongol Empire directly ruled by Great Khans before the actual establishment of the Yuan dynasty by Kublai Khan in 1271. Genghis Khan united the Mongol and Turkic tribes of the steppes and he and his successors expanded the Mongol empire across Asia. Under the reign of Genghis third son, Ögedei Khan, the Mongols destroyed the weakened Jin dynasty in 1234, Ögedei offered his nephew Kublai a position in Xingzhou, Hebei. Kublai was unable to read Chinese but had several Han Chinese teachers attached to him since his early years by his mother Sorghaghtani and he sought the counsel of Chinese Buddhist and Confucian advisers. Möngke Khan succeeded Ögedeis son, Güyük, as Great Khan in 1251 and he granted his brother Kublai control over Mongol held territories in China. Kublai built schools for Confucian scholars, issued paper money, revived Chinese rituals and he adopted as his capital city Kaiping in Inner Mongolia, later renamed Shangdu. Many Han Chinese and Khitan defected to the Mongols to fight against the Jin, two Han Chinese leaders, Shi Tianze, Liu Heima, and the Khitan Xiao Zhala defected and commanded the 3 Tumens in the Mongol army. Liu Heima and Shi Tianze served Ogödei Khan, Liu Heima and Shi Tianxiang led armies against Western Xia for the Mongols

The Russian Empire (Russian: Россійская Имперія) was an empire that existed from 1721, following the end of the Great …

Peter the Great officially renamed the Tsardom of Russia as the Russian Empire in 1721 and became its first emperor. He instituted sweeping reforms and oversaw the transformation of Russia into a major European power.

The search for the 14th Dalai Lama took the High Lamas to Taktser in Amdo

Palden Lhamo, the female guardian spirit of the sacred lake, Lhamo La-tso, who promised Gendun Drup the 1st Dalai Lama in one of his visions that "she would protect the 'reincarnation' lineage of the Dalai Lamas"

A 1903 map in Polish showing both the large Semirechye Oblast (Semirjeczeńsk in Polish) and its neighbors. The map also shows a much smaller historical area labeled Siedmiorzecze (Polish translation for Russian "Semirechye", i.e. Zhetysu proper) southeast of Lake Balkhash

The Kangxi Emperor in ceremonial armor, armed with bow and arrows. The Qing emperor would be the most formidable enemy Galdan faced, and it would be Qing opposition that checked his ambition of uniting the Mongols under his standard